Posted on 09/15/2008 10:59:20 PM PDT by Fred
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Monday night was negotiating a last-minute plan to sell large portions of itself to Barclays PLC, the U.K. bank that has been circling the U.S. investment house. Barclays Americas Chairman Archibald Cox Jr. was leading the talks, and an agreement is hoped to be reached by Tuesday, said a person involved in the talks.
Lehman's top executives were huddled at the bank's Manhattan headquarters trying to craft a plan that would preserve many Lehman jobs and operations, say people briefed on the discussions.
A deal wasn't certain, and many questions remain, chief among them, the price that Barclays might pay for Lehman, whose holding company is now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. That structure allows it to sell off other assets without liquidating, and gives it additional time to reach an agreement.
The troubled assets, such as mortgage securities, will be left behind in the holding company for creditors to liquidate as they see fit, said people familiar with the deal.
It is expected that at least 10,000 people would shift to Barclays as part of the transaction that would involve the broker-dealer operation and all of its divisions.
A last-minute deal might come off as a well-received rescue of a bank that was on the verge of disappearing Monday. The transaction being contemplated would fold Lehman's core business -- underwriting stocks and bondshttp://www.freerepublic.com/perl/post_article, providing merger advice and securities trading -- into Barclays, the U.K.'s third-largest bank.
The deal would shift Lehman's assets to Barclays free and clear of any liens, claims or encumbrances. It would be either a stock deal or an asset deal, said people involved in the matter. Time is of the essence for Lehman, whose main assets -- its people -- are rapidly walking out its doors.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Smart move by Barclay’s - bad timing for investors that were wiped out today.
Wonder where Townsend Analytics ends up.
i think, from Barclays POV, it may have made very good sense to let LEH go ch11 and get the entire shareholder question out of the way.
I completely agree. So does the market. The DOW futures are only down about 70 right now. If AIG gets settled then there might even be a mini rally tomorrow. Of course, that would be foolish since there are more train wrecks coming...
Barclays was asked to take them over. When it became clear they were the only bidder, they figured why buy what you get a steal on. Good for them.
Like WaMu?
Or maybe the Feds will keep them on life support as a vegetable financial institution.
Imagine how thousands of people were feeding numbers into risk formulae by the hour, day, week, etc. Oh, the model is wrong.
Is Cox the same Cox that married Tricia Nixon ?
vix is high enough that a lack of new bad news could certainly offer a semi-cooked cat bounce....
WaMu is a foregone conclusion. I'm talking about the 3 - 6 month timeframe. I think that Citi is going south and it will make Lehman look like small potatoes.
Actually, Barclays looked at the books and concluded that Lehman was insolvent.
yitbos
We'll have to see what happens overnight in Europe. It sure is looking like it's about to stage a small rally.
That day traders will do well, but those people jumping in because they think this is a market bottom will be in for a shock.
I just took a look at the world markets. All were down everyone except Norway/ Does not look good for tomorrow, better get your aluminum hat ready if City Wide goes under.
Citi wouldn't be going under anytime really soon. But I personally don't think that they will last too much longer (3 - 6 months).
I'm guessing that the Dow will begin down slightly and then stage a fairly significant rally from the people trying to turn a quick profit.
Interestingly, Monday the DJIA 30 Industrials was down 4.42% while the overal NYA total exchange was down 5.09%.
yitbos
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