Wall Street Shaken by Lehman Failure, Bank of America - Merrill Lynch Buyout
Lehman Brothers goes into bankruptcy, Bank of America buys Merrill Lynch.
Mon, September 15, 2008
Wall Street will never be the same again as Lehman Brothers heads into bankruptcy Monday and Bank of America says it would buy Merrill Lynch & Co., another troubled financial firm.
While JPMorganChase stepped in to acquire Bear Stearns when it collapsed just a few months ago, analysts say they hold out little hope for a similar rescue for Lehman.
"I do not expect a buyer to step in to rescue the holding company," says Robert Iati, partner at the TABB Group, a research firm that closely monitors both the business and technology aspects of the major financial-services firms.
Iati notes that Lehman does have businesses, such as the asset-management business of Neuberger Berman and Townsend Analytics, operator of the Realtick execution management system, that are likely to be acquired in the near term. But, he adds, "Lehman has thousands of technology professionals that are likely to find it difficult to find jobs commensurate with the roles they left behind at Lehman because now and for the foreseeable future, there are fewer and fewer brokerage jobs out there and competition for those jobs is more intense than ever seen before." (See Hottest tech merger & acquisition deals of 2008)
Lehman declined comment Monday on the bankruptcy and its impact on employees, but evidence of the fallout came in various ways as cameras covered employees with their belongings streaming out of Lehman locations in New York and elsewhere around the world.
Some, such as Lehman colleagues Vijay Jayant and James Ratcliffe, who had both been analysts on the Lehman Brothers Cable and Satellite Communications Team, Monday sent off farewell e-mail addressed to clients, friends and colleagues. "It's been a great pleasure working with you over the last five years," they state in the e-mail. Ratcliffe declined to comment further and Jayant could not be reached.
Wall Street firms are big investors in IT and telecommunications, on which they heavily depend to compete in interconnected systems for ultra-fast electronic trading.
Lehman is no different. According to 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.
