Lehman Brothers Goes Bankrupt!

After nearly 158 years of trading, Lehman Brothers had a blunt message for its workers.

The message delivered to shocked Lehman Brothers staff on Monday was simple and direct. “it is all over” announced Christian Mesissner to a morning staff gathering just a week after being appointed to run Lehman Brothers in Europe. He told the staff to look for new opportunities and move on”.

Staff had little choice but to follow suit in Lehman’s offices around the globe as they came to terms with the reality of the vertiginous collapse of the 158 year old institution, leaving workplaces with belongings hastily collected and their savings depleted.

The Lehman Brothers mantra was to pay its staff in stock in which some 30 per cent of the bank’s equity was held by employees and many bonuses were paid in shares. Now those holdings are all but worthless.

Some staff were also told not to expect a paycheck at the end of the month and that they might even be liable for expenses on their corporate credit cards.

In Lehman’s London office, the bridgehead for the Wall Street firm’s international expansion, many were evidently determined to minimise their status as creditors to the firm.

“Some have more than £100 on their pre-pay canteen cards, ‘so’ they’re buying hundreds of bars of chocolate, bags of roasted coffee and anything that’s non-perishable.” stated one employee.

As New York woke up tourists mingled with the media outside Lehman Brothers’ headquarters near Times Square to watch employees existing the collapsed bank.

Some staff said they had been banned from sending e-mails, adding that BlackBerries and mobile phones no longer worked. Plus some of Lehman’s senior bankers are expected to set up an independent advisory boutiques in the near future.

Staff outside Merrill Lynch’s offices in the City of London voiced relief at the firm’s rescue takeover by Bank of America.