Category Archives: Investment banks

Charles Gasparino of CNBC has reported that a ource at Goldman has told him the firm is not willing to buy Lehman. This is at odds with what a source, a former senior officer who has been accurate about past Lehman-related matters, told us earlier today via e-mail. Ah, but are the two stories necessarily […]

I heard this rumor from two sources, that Lehman is in its final day or two and Goldman is willing to buy the firm, and the second source, who volunteered the information, is sufficiently well plugged in that I trust the reading. This came from a former senior employee: A couple friends of mine from […]

Lehman’s survival as an independent firm looks increasingly in doubt, yet the shape of an end game is not yet clear, although, per T.S. Eliot, it likely to conclude with a whimper. The market’s reaction to Lehman’s way worse than expected earnings announcement of $3.9 billion in loses due to $5.6 billion in writedowns was […]

We had noted earlier that the price discussions around the possible sale by Lehman of a stake in its asset management operations valued the rest of the firm at close to zero. A story at Bloomberg has taken this line of thinking one step further. From Bloomberg: Lehman’s market capitalization of $11.2 billion is almost […]

We were willing to be proven wrong in our skepticism of Korea Development Bank’s pursuit acquiring a stake in Lehman. We had no doubts about the interest; the KDB CEO was the former Seoul branch manager for Lehman and full bore behind a deal. But the reception of the Korean government, which had to approve […]

A little late, don’t’cha think? Yes, that is a one year price chart. One of the best buy indicators on a stock is when analysts are close to unanimity in designating it a sell. Like rating agencies, analysts are loath to downgrade a stock. By the time things are so indisputably dreadful that they can […]

One of the pet notions of M&A is that anything can be solved by price. Thus even a garbage barge embattled institution like Lehman might could be a screaming bargain at the right level. So it’s possible that HSBC and the unnamed Chinese bank are indeed interested in Lehman, but “interested” covers a multitude of […]

Korea Development Bank CEO and former Lehman Seoul branch manager Min Euoo Sung confirmed that talks with Lehman about a possible investment are still continuing. Note that Min has been the driving force behind the deal; the stumbling block appears to have been getting official approval. With talks apparently fairly serious, it would seem some […]

When the Korea Development Bank had signaled that buying a stake in an investment bank might be premature at this juncture, it had appeared the bureaucrats had beaten back KDB’s chairman and former head of Lehman’s Seoul branch, Min-Euoo-song, who was pushing the deal. But the Telegraph tells us not only that negotiations are back […]

We were pretty skeptical of the idea that Korea Development Bank would buy a stake in Lehman, particularly since Dick Fuld seems a bit in denial as to what a stake in the storied firm might fetch these days (for instance, for the asset management operations, he wanted a buyback option. Let’s see, you are […]