-
Financial Times (UK)
|
Sep 30, 08 6:10 AM CDT
(Newser) -
Two private equity firms will acquire Neuberger Berman, the largest and most prestigious component of Lehman Brothers, for $2.15 billion. Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman will pay in cash for the wealth management firm—an indication of just how stultified credit markets have become. Only a month before Lehman collapsed several potential buyers were considering paying three times as much, reports the Financial Times .
More »
-
Bloomberg
|
Sep 27, 08 9:16 AM CDT
(Newser) -
A $20-million collection of abstract expressionist drawings belonging to Lehman boss Richard Fuld and his wife is to be sold by Christie's, Bloomberg reports. Fuld's net worth has taken a whack with the collapse of Lehman stock; the sale, which includes 3 de Koonings, was anounced 4 days after the company declared bankruptcy. Kathy Fuld is a well-known modern art collector and MoMA trustee.
More »
-
Associated Press
|
Sep 23, 08 8:21 PM CDT
(AP) -
The FBI is investigating four major US financial institutions whose collapse helped trigger a $700-billion bailout plan by the Bush administration. The agency is looking at potential fraud by mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, insurer AIG and Lehman Brothers. The inquiries will focus on the companies and the individuals that ran them, a senior law enforcement official said.
More »
-
Independent (UK)
|
Sep 23, 08 9:00 AM CDT
(Newser) -
Some 10,000 New York Lehman Brothers employees will share bonus pay of $2.5 billion, sparking anger among the investment bank’s European workers and critics of unfair compensation in the imploding finance arena, the Independent reports. The money was arranged before Lehman declared bankruptcy. Lehman’s British staff, who are bracing for the loss of jobs or pay rates, called the bonus pay a “scandal.”
More »
-
Wall Street Journal
|
Sep 22, 08 9:02 AM CDT
(Newser) -
An $8-billion transfer from Lehman Bros.' European headquarters to its New York headquarters on the day the firm declared bankruptcy is raising issues on both sides of the Atlantic. As the sale of Lehman's US operations to Barclays was approved Saturday, the administrators of the company's bankruptcy filing in Great Britain were demanding that the money be returned, reports the Wall Street Journal, saying it belongs to clients and employees.
More »
-
Wall Street Journal
|
Sep 22, 08 4:02 AM CDT
(Newser) -
Japan’s Nomura Holdings won an auction to buy bankrupt Lehman Brothers’ Asian assets for $225 million, the Wall Street Journal reports. Healthy Japanese firms like Nomura are pouncing on the Wall Street crisis as a means to expand. Lehman has 2,940 workers in the region, where the company collected revenues of $1.4 billion in the first half of 2008.
More »
-
Washington Post
|
Sep 21, 08 7:00 PM CDT
(Newser) -
The sad eyes of interns watched Wall Street's precipitous drop all week. These "lackeys," who had worked all summer at investment firms, can no longer expect to retire at 35 with houses in the Hamptons and "a closetful of Brioni suits and Hermès ties," David Bledin writes in the Washington Post . Nor will they endure years of 90-hour weeks and suicidal impulses.
More »
-
Slate
|
Sep 21, 08 12:44 PM CDT
(Newser) -
Sure, subprime loans toppled two pillars of American investment banking, gutted the world’s largest insurer, and plunged the entire US financial system into a tailspin. But they are exactly what the world needs today, Daniel Gross argues in Slate. “Far from the madding, depressed crowds of Wall Street, billions of people are starving for credit,” the columnist writes.
More »
-
New York Times
|
Sep 21, 08 6:05 AM CDT
(Newser) -
The federal government’s giant bailout plan sparked a stock market surge—but it’s unlikely the economic turbulence will end anytime soon, warns David Leonhardt in the New York Times . “It’s been a long period of excess” lasting over a decade, and now the dot-com, stock market and real estate bubbles are bursting, with others bound to follow. The "hangover" could last as long as the party, Leonhardt notes.
More »
-
Wall Street Journal
|
Sep 19, 08 12:00 PM CDT
(Newser) -
It will be harder for the next president to pursue grand plans in the wake of this week’s financial meltdown, writes Gerald Seib in the Wall Street Journal . Beyond its immediate impact on the campaign, the crisis has “ripple effects.” The amount of money the Fed has shelled out means there’s less for domestic spending on big-ticket items such as health care.
More »
-
Wall Street Journal
|
Sep 19, 08 11:35 AM CDT
(Newser) -
Why is John McCain angrily calling for the head of Christopher Cox, the chairman of the SEC? Because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and needs a scapegoat, writes the Wall Street Journal in an editorial today. "This assault on Mr. Cox is both false and deeply unfair. It's also un-Presidential," the Journal writes.
More »
-
Wall Street Journal
|
Sep 19, 08 9:41 AM CDT
(Newser) -
The financial world has been rocked to its foundations in a few short days, with a handful of men making momentous decisions. The Wall Street Journal outlines the key players. Henry Paulson. No Treasury chief has wielded such power. He decides whether big firms live or die via federal bailouts. Will his too-big-to-fail philosophy stand the test of time? John Thain. The Merrill Lynch CEO saw the writing on the wall for his own firm while working on the Lehman crisis. In less than 24 hours, he hammered out a deal to sell Merrill to Bank of America.
More »
-
Bloomberg
|
Sep 19, 08 8:14 AM CDT
(Newser) -
The US Treasury moved today to temporarily insure investors against losses on money-market funds, Bloomberg reports. As much as $50 billion from the government’s Exchange Stabilization Fund will be used to back for a year funds that pay to participate in the program. Money-market funds, in which investors normally aren't at risk of losing their principal, are considered one of the safest investments, but confidence in them was shaken this week as the credit crisis widened.
More »
-
Washington Post
|
Sep 18, 08 10:47 AM CDT
(Newser) -
Like sports fans second-guessing officials’ calls, lawmakers are watching uneasily from the sidelines as Treasury and Federal Reserve officials pledge billions of taxpayer dollars to fight Wall Street’s meltdown, the Washington Post reports. And, while many in both parties have been convinced the moves were appropriate, they’re worried too few players—unelected, at that—have too much power.
More »
-
Washington Post
|
Sep 17, 08 12:00 PM CDT
(Newser) -
With Wall Street in extremis, John McCain is backing away from a long history as an opponent of financial regulation, reports the Washington Post . The paper cites McCain's record in backing banking deregulation, including the 1999 legislation, sponsored by then-Sen. Phil Gramm, a McCain campaign adviser, that removed the Depression-era walls between banking, investment, and insurance companies.
More »
