This bonus isn’t going (primarily at least) to Lehman’s officers, it’s going to the rank and file employees in the New York office that Barclays is buying. This is a business where the most valuable assets are the people, and the last thing Barclays wants to do is buy the broker-dealer business and lose any employee who can get an offer elsewhere (naturally, the most valuable ones).
if so, I stand corrected. thank god for rational exhuberance with the emphasis of accuracy. I think all sectors of real estate got sucked into this one. U.S. commercials banks wanted to compete with international banks and sleep in the bed we make.
Thanks for clarifying that. The main company is bankrupt and closest bar, Tonic, threw a going away happy hour last Friday for Lehman employees.
Employees of the broker dealer, for which Barclay paid just 250 million, are ok and are being kept for 3 months. During that time, Barclay will determine long-term staffing needs, but it looks like most people not in Fixed Income will keep their jobs.
Course, Bear employees had a sweet deal, with their Fixed Income dept. being desired the most, but my contacts there are telling me of stealth layoffs. Also, with the current market conditions, there is not a lot of securitization going on at the moment.
“This is a business where the most valuable assets are the people”
I agree that a successful businesses people are their most valuable asset but this business went belly up. The stockholders who put their money at risk are loosing but the failures are getting rewarded.
Seems wrong to me.
This bonus shows how confident the financial mafia is that we the people can do nothing to them. It is a collosal PR mistake.
We will use it against them 100 fold.