As Options Fade, Lehman Is Said to Seek a Buyer

[alcibiades_mystery]

Source: New York Times

A day after Lehman Brothers sought to assure Wall Street that it could survive on its own, the beleaguered investment bank, urged on by federal officials, bowed to mounting pressure on Thursday and put itself up for sale.

As confidence in Lehman continued to drain away on Thursday, the bank, one of the oldest names on Wall Street, reached out to several potential buyers, including Bank of America and Barclays, the big British bank, according to people briefed on the negotiations. Lehman hopes to strike a deal within days.

In each case, the suitors are seeking help from the Federal Reserve to help make an acquisition palatable. They want the Fed to guarantee a part of Lehman’s troubled assets, these people said, similar to the way it backstopped the emergency sale of another foundering bank, Bear Stearns, in March.

But while the Treasury Department and Fed were working to broker an orderly sale of Lehman, it was unclear whether the Fed would stand behind any deal, particularly after the Bush administration took control of the nation’s two largest mortgage finance companies only days ago.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/business/12lehman.html

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Lehman going the way of Bear Sterns, with feds brokering a deal to avoid impending collapse of the financial sector.

2008 will be known as the year of the meltdown. Chicago School neoliberalism as utterly debunked in practice as the control economies of Soviet Russia.

[The Magistrate]

1. There Must Be Blood, Sir

It hardly matters which one, all are compromised fatally. The basic problem is that there are tremendous sums out there on paper that were treated as money though they really had no legitimate claim to be regarded as stores of value. No one now can say what proportion of capital assets actually represent money....

[Tutonic]

2. I'm willing to buy it sir--if $33 will be accepted.

[DogPoundPup]

3. U.S. Helps Lehman Go Up for Sale

Source: Washington Post

The Federal Reserve and Treasury Department are actively helping Lehman Brothers put itself up for sale, and officials are hoping a deal will be in place this weekend before the Asian markets open on Monday, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The government is looking for an agreement that would not involve public money. One scenario that is emerging includes multiple suitors acquiring different pieces of the venerable investment bank, which has suffered staggering losses from its bets on real estate and mortgages.

The situation was still fluid yesterday, and there was no guarantee what form an agreement would take or even that it would be in place by Monday, the sources said on condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to speak.

Regulators have been in touch with Lehman on an almost hourly basis in recent days. High-ranking officials including New York Federal Reserve President Timothy F. Geithner, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke have been discussing a broad range of possibilities for Lehman, trying to determine the risks each outcome could pose to the financial system, the sources said.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091102580.html

[OilemFirchen]

4. Beulah the Buzzer sez...

[SOS]

5. No more tax money for Wall Street crooks!

nt