Fuld: 'I Was Whipping Boy' for Lehman Failure

Execs may land in court for disguising bad investments

(NEWSER) - Lehman Brothers tried to buy itself time by manipulating accounting gimmicks to disguise its bad investments, according to a court-ordered report on the firm's demise. The exhaustive, 2,200 page report found that execs, including former CEO Richard Fuld, could be held legally liable for the "materially misleading" attempt to disguise the state of its finances ahead of its collapse in 2008, the Guardian reports. More»

People behind financial crisis went to same universities

(NEWSER) - Many of the bigwigs involved in the financial crisis went to the same few elite schools, notes Joe Weisenthal in Business Insider. Maybe, he writes, when the crisis begins to fade, we’ll think twice about having another Harvardian or MIT grad running things. Among the offending institutions:

• New York University: Ex-Lehman CEO Dick Fuld, ex-Lehman CFO Erin Callan, Rep. Charlie Rangel, investor Carl Icahn, former Fed boss Alan Greenspan. Grade: D-

Fuld not the only one hiding assets

(NEWSER) - Dick Fuld’s wife isn’t the only one getting a discount mansion. Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli and ex-Merrill Lynch honcho Stanley O’Neal have followed Fuld’s lead, handing their multimillion-dollar homes to their spouses, according to property records obtained by the New York Post. Such deed transfers are often used to protect the house from legal action. More»

15 financial, home building bosses made over $100M

(NEWSER) - Investors have lost some $9 trillion since last year’s stock market peak, but at the center of the maelstrom, CEOs of some of the worst-performing companies are sitting pretty. Fifteen financial services and homebuilding CEOs have accumulated more than $100 million each in the past 5 years in cash compensation and stock sales, the Wall Street Journal reports. That includes the heads of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and other nearly bankrupt or deeply damaged companies. More»

Face of the financial crisis 'terminated,' will stay on board of directors

(NEWSER) - Lehman Brothers boss Richard Fuld, who led the giant 158-year-old Wall Street brokerage firm into bankruptcy, has been abruptly terminated. The 62-year-old Fuld, who earned $484 million from Lehman over the last eight years, won't receive a bonus or severance payments, but will keep his salaried post on the board of directors when he leaves as CEO the end of the year, reports the New York Daily News. More»