ne week after Lehman Brothers filed the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history, a big chunk of its work force is getting used to the idea of working for someone else.
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for Chapter 11 a week ago on Monday, and since then, Lehman has sold its North American banking business to Barclays and its Japanese and Australian units to Nomura. An announcement on the sale of Lehman's U.S. money management arm, Neuberger Berman, is expected soon.
"Things are happening extra fast but that's due to the nature of the assets," said Evan Flaschen, head of restructuring at Bracewell & Giuliani. "If these are not sold quickly, there will be nothing left to sell."
Barclays said Monday it had offered jobs to more than 10,000 Lehman employees in the U.S., many of whom had spent the past week wondering about their professional futures. Lehman employs a total of about 25,000 people globally.
Lehman's U.S. employees — working in the investment banking, trading, research and other North American units — now work for Barclays Capital. Barclays has a two-year lease to use the Lehman name, and the company said in a statement that it would "consider opportunities to do so."
Barclays said it acted quickly to retain Lehman employees after its acquisition of those units was approved by a U.S. bankruptcy judge just after midnight Saturday. The value of the deal was said to be roughly $1.35 billion, and included Lehman's Manhattan office tower.
With its acquisition of key Lehman units in the U.S., Barclays finally gets the investment banking capability it has long sought. Barclays lost a high-profile and hard-fought takeover battle last year to buy Dutch bank ABN Amro Holding NV. A consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland PLC had offered a higher bid.
Meanwhile, Lehman employees in Asia and Australia learned Monday that their units would be bought by Japan's largest brokerage, Nomura Holdings Inc. Nomura said the deal was "a once in a generation opportunity." Lehman has 3,000 employees in Asia, many of whom work at the bigger regional offices in Japan and Hong Kong.
The deal was valued at around $225 million, one person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press earlier, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. Nomura said the deal would not include any trading assets or liabilities.
In China, two more banks reported holding Lehman Brothers bonds, raising total Lehman debt disclosed by Chinese lenders to $634.8 million. But analysts say the impact of Lehman's failure on Chinese banks should be limited.
Once Lehman has sold off its main assets, Flaschen said the investment bank would turn its attention to the string of lawsuits that are sure to be filed.
"Once the prime assets are sold, it's going to turn into massive litigation," he said, with creditors doing whatever they can to maximize what they get back.
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AP Business Writer Jeremiah Marquez in Hong Kong contributed to this report.
9/22/2008 5:41 PM
By VINNEE TONG
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK
ne week after Lehman Brothers filed the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history, a big chunk of its work force is getting used to the idea of working for someone else.
