Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEH)

Lehman, GGP lead February bankruptcy claim trades
Tue Mar 9, 2010 10:57am EST

By Emily Chasan

NEW YORK, March 9 (Reuters) - Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc (LEHMQ.PK), General Growth Properties Inc (GGP.N) and Smurfit Stone Container Corp (SSCCQ.PK) led bankruptcy claims trading activity in February, according to data on Tuesday from SecondMarket.

SecondMarket, which runs a trading platform for bankruptcy claims and other illiquid assets, said some 108 claims worth $620 million changed hands in February in the Lehman bankruptcy, while 10 claims worth $40 million did so in the General Growth case, and 604 claims worth $11.7 million were swapped in the Smurfit Stone bankruptcy.

A total of 1,417 claims were transferred in February with a face value of some $723.8 million, SecondMarket said, marking an all-time record in claims trading activity for a single month. The previous one-month high was in December when 1,029 claims were traded. December also holds the record face-value traded with some $3.3 billion in claims trading hands amid a year-end activity spike.

Bankruptcy-claims trading lets creditors with claims against bankrupt companies sell their interests to investors before the conclusion of a bankruptcy case.

Smurfit-Stone represented 42 percent of all transfers in February, as the packaging company's shareholders have been fighting in court to get a payout from its bankruptcy.

"Smurfit's been quite active," said Christopher Moon, director of bankruptcy claims trading for SecondMarket. "We've been involved in a number of transactions and we've seen pricing levels generally pick up as well for general unsecured claims over the last six months."