Posted on 09/21/2008 3:06:14 PM PDT by LiveFreeOrDie2001
Fury at $2.5bn Lehman bonus Nomura and Barclays table bids today for US giant’s London operation as bank’s administrator likens collapse to EnronJohn Waples and Danny Fortson STAFF at Lehman’s New York office who helped to cause the world’s biggest corporate bankruptcy are to share in a $2.5 billion bonanza. The bonus, which has been described by London staff as a “scandal” has been pledged by Barclays Capital, the British-based bank that last week acquired Lehman’s American operation and took on 10,000 staff. The $2.5 billion (£1.4 billion) pot, which has been ring-fenced as part of the acquisition, has caused huge resentment among the 5,000 staff in the firm’s European and Middle Eastern operations who are not guaranteed to be paid after this month. There are, however, hopes that half the jobs in Lehman’s Canary Wharf office could be saved today by either Barclays or Nomura. Bids are being submitted for its UK equities and investment-banking business. A Chapter 11 bankruptcy document filed by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc says that Barclays has identified eight individuals out of the New York staff of 10,000 who are vital to make the deal succeed and a further 200 who are identified as “key”. It is thought that these eight directors will be locked into two-year contracts worth between $10m and $25m a year. Related Links Paulson hailed as hero for stemming market slide A sickening slump gives way to euphoria The $2.5 billion had been accrued as part of the contribution to Lehman’s group profits for the first nine months of the year. Barclays said there is no obligation to pay it out but analysts say the competitive pressure to keep key staff means he will have to. p>
(Excerpt) Read more at business.timesonline.co.uk ...
Ok - fair enough.
I want to see the management of these firms pay and not walk away with multi-million bonuses (as in the case of the now ex-CEO of WaMu) so that they can repeat these errors in another cycle.
As to Congress - what can I say? What I have in mind will get me banned if I expess it in word on FR.
“Bonuses are a big part of the pay at oil companies, as well. It is the reason that safety is often secondary to profit. The unit managers get big bucks for keeping costs down, and the little people who do all the work and take all the risks get little bonuses.”
What is that I’m catching a whiff of? Anti-capitalism? Oil company bashing? Something.
This thread like almost all the Oil threads prove to me that Free Republic is not a Conservative Forum. It is a populist forum. Oh you have to love the driver of the 88 car and hate abortions. If you do the last two you can pretty much be a lib.
We have at least a trillion dollars in losses to bear, above what has been lost, and that is also more than a trillion when they get a chance to run the adding machine.
The reality is that it could be much worse, and nobody really knows if this will work for sure.
All I can tell you for sure is what happened when a similar disruption occurred in the 1929 markets, and the Fed did too little too late, largely because there was no federal reserve. The cost to a much smaller America was staggering, and people were eventually driven to foreclosure, tent cities, soup lines, begging and selling apples on the street corners. Hunger was major issue, starvation occurred, and it all came as such a surprise that wall street and main street were so interconnected.
I won't be surprised, but many will and I hope they don't have to, but it is very possible that they might.
Just heard Barney fag and Dodd in a sound bite railing against the corporate boards who he said caused all this, and I just spoke to that issue in a previous post about how they will divert suspicion by attacking the very people they asked for bribes because they write the laws, and law gives them plausible deniability.
It's so damn obvious. You can tell the guilty from the innocent just by who they attack and how.
God help us this morning, Monday September 22nd. May we survive this disruption and give strength and resolve to those who are trying to prevent financial disaster.
It's true. We do have a very populist bent to the society right now. The politicians and their enabler press has created it, and it will eventually destroy them. And perhaps us as well....we can't know.
The street is saying that it's becoming likely that Congress will inject politics and muck up this effort by the Fed.
All you need to hear is the comments from Barney and Dodd to make that logical assumption.
The share holders are the gamblers here, not the poor workin stiff who is doing as ordered by the firm.
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Thanks for explaining. For awhile there I thought that at least some of these workin stiffs contributed to the debacle that caused so many others to lose billions. It’s good to know that the shareholders are the ones at fault.
No decision maker in that company should be paid a dime for the mess they’ve created. So far I haven’t heard of anyone who has been held accountable.
“The street is saying that it’s becoming likely that Congress will inject politics and muck up this effort by the Fed.”
Yeah, I thought as much. I would love to be shorting the BDs.
It’s Barcklays damn money why the hell cant the spend it any way they please. This is a Conservative Forum take your stinky populist socialist BS elsewhere!!!!
The financial sector was making very nice profits by securitizing the mortgage debt, but only after they were asked, or better put, ordered to do so my some minor manipulation in the regulatory rules at fanny mae which came directly from Congress during the Clinton admin.
Once this Pandora's box was fully open, everyone participated, and that is not what I am defending because that will happen every time. It's what they do!
The failure was that seeing this happen and knowing what could occur, the Bush admin and every other effort failed to stop it.
The reasons are quite simple. in this age of public correctness, all you have to do is drop the race card on the stack of issues and they go away!
That's exactly how it happened. And frankly, it would have taken a act of God to stop this. It was the perfect political power play, and that's the facts.
“We do have a very populist bent to the society right now.”
That may be true but they do not need to be hanging out here. This is supposed to be a Conservative Forum.
But I don't.
Futures now at DOW -91
btt
My husband works for one of those oil companies and the bonuses are sometimes a bone of contention, when certain things are sacrificed to cost cutting, that should not be.
How “key” can these staff be if they ran the company into bankruptcy? Surely that’s not worth a $2.5 billion bonus.
There is no more pay, there is no more company. Buh Bye bonuses...
In answer to you shoot from the hip reply, this division was never losing money and Barclay's made a fire sale deal for the unit and it's employees together, or not. If they had decided to screw them, the unit would have been nothing but real estate and paper.
This is a Conservative Forum take your stinky populist socialist BS elsewhere!!!!
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Not a very nice thing to a conservative who hates to see crooks and incompetents make a dime from outrageous incompetence and outright fraud. Saying it’s their money is like saying the federal government’s money is theirs and not ours. People who have been shafted don’t play into the equation I guess.
There is no way someone at this company should be getting millions of dollars in bonuses when the taxpayers are being asked to bail them out.
Even if just from a political perspective, this is handing the White House to the Democrats by going along with this.
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