Lehman Brothers Bank Collapse

Lehman Brothers America’s fourth largest bank heads into bankruptcy Monday. According to the company’s announcement “Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (“LBHI”) announced today that it intends to file a petition under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. None of the broker-dealer subsidiaries or other subsidiaries of LBHI will be included in the Chapter 11 filing and all of the broker-dealers will continue to operate. Customers of Lehman Brothers, including customers of its wholly owned subsidiary, Neuberger Berman Holdings, LLC, may continue to trade or take other actions with respect to their accounts”.

According to networkworld.com, ‘its recent SEC filing for the nine months that ended Aug. 31, Lehman Brothers spent $921 million on technology and communications in 2008, up from $834 million the same period in 2007. Lehman was well respected and its CTO, Hari Gopalkrisnan, has earned plaudits for technology innovation’. Shares around the world fell on average 4% on last Monday.

Some experts say the credit crunch been brought about by greed and incompetence on the part of the banks around the world. Lehman Brothers, is one of America's oldest banks, and has become the biggest casualty of the credit crunch.