Stories related to: investment bank

Lehman Brothers is selling $3 billion in new shares to allay fears after its stock dropped 42% this year, Bloomberg reports. "We still maintain that we don't need capital, but we've realized that perception is the dominant issue in today's markets,'' said CFO Erin Callan. Lehman fell up to 48% this month on rumors that it lacked cash and faced a Bear Stearns-style meltdown. More »

Lehman Brothers is suing Japanese trading company Marubeni, seeking to recover $350 million lost in a scam apparently engineered by two of the company’s employees. The scheme involved forged documents purportedly bearing a board member’s seal and two meetings at Marubeni headquarters, including one with an impostor posing as an executive, reports the Wall Street Journal. Marubeni has denied wrongdoing and says it won’t pay. More »

Possible fraud involving forged documents from a Japanese trading firm may have cost Lehman Brothers $250 million, the Wall Street Journal reports. The investment bank loaned funds to a Japanese biotech firm last year; the transaction was secured by top trading company Marubeni Corp. But the biotech firm filed for bankruptcy March 19, and the funds still haven’t been paid back. More »

Ordinary investors did fairly well in 2007, but their brokers and other big financial players lost their shirts in the subprime collapse. How did that happen? The New York Times observes that “parallel markets” have developed in recent years, with stocks and bonds available to most, and specialized, acronym-heavy securities like CDOs, MBSs and SIVs available only to favored insiders. More »

Goldman Sachs gave CEO Lloyd Blankfein a $67.9 million bonus for 2007, believed to be one of the largest such payouts in history, MarketWatch reports. The bonus includes $26.8 million in cash and $41.1 million in stocks. Goldman succeeded this year while rivals foundered in the subprime morass; CEOs at poor-performing Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns did not receive bonuses for 2007. More »

Still sitting pretty above the subprime fray, Goldman Sachs trumped estimates today and reported a 2% jump in profits in the fourth quarter, breaking the annual profit record for the fourth straight year. Goldman shorted subprime mortgages, profiting from the disaster that sank competitors, and in the quarter actually boosted its revenue from mortgage securities, Bloomberg reports. More »

When Goldman Sachs reported $2.85 billion in third-quarter profits, it sounded like an “I told you so.” As most financials reported credit-crunch pratfalls, Goldman alone had read the signs and gone the right way on mortgages. “You’d have to give them an A-plus,” said one Merril Lynch analyst. Many wish they didn’t have to, the New York Times says. More »

After last week’s dismal report card for its investment arm, Bank of America replaced that unit’s president and announced a slate of reforms to recharge the business. Gene Taylor abruptly retired and will be replaced by Brian Moynihan, the bank’s president of Global Wealth and Investment Management, and an architect of its FleetBoston merger, reports the Wall Street Journal . More »

Investment powerhouse Goldman Sachs has been the subject of menacing letters sent to newspapers across the country, prompting an investigation by the FBI. "Hundreds will die,"  warn the  letters that have been traced back to Queens, New York. "We are inside. You cannot stop us." More »

Bear Stearns posted a 10% drop in quarterly earnings today, the latest victim of the subprime collapse. The country's second-largest mortgage-bond underwriter posted profits well below expectations, down nearly 33% from last year to $362 million. Goldman Sachs escaped bruised but more-or-less unscathed, with profits up 1% on the strength of its banking division. More »

In a penthouse-level play, real estate developer Tishman Speyer Properties and investment bank Lehman Brothers will spend $13.5 billion to buy the nation's second-largest apartment owner. The $60.75 per share offer for real estate trust Archstone-Smith, confirmed this morning, will take the company private in a deal worth over $22 billion including debt. More »