Reply #35: I guess this is goodbye'; A behind-the-scenes look at Lehman Brothers' last gasp before bankruptcy

[Robbien]

It is Sunday, Sept. 14, 2008, in New York and an intense weekend spent trying to prevent the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the market chaos that would cause was drawing to a close. There would be no white knight to rescue the company. This excerpt from Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin details the curtain call made to Lehman's board of directors.

Henry Paulson, Treasury Secretary, checked his watch and saw that it was past 7 p.m., which meant the Asian markets were opening, and Lehman still hadn't filed for bankruptcy.

"Has Cox talked to them yet?" he barked at his chief of staff, Jim Wilkinson.

Wilkinson said that he had been trying to get Chris Cox, chairman of the SEC, to call Lehman directly, but that he had been resistant.

"He hasn't done s–t," Wilkinson said dismissively. "I went in there and repeated what you said, and it's like he's frozen. Like a f—ing deer in the headlights."

Cox, for whom Paulson had very little respect to begin with, was proving how over his head he really was. Paulson had assigned him the task of co-ordinating Lehman's filing by, well, now. "This guy is useless," he said, throwing his hands in the air and heading over to Cox's temporary office himself.

After barging in and slamming the door, Paulson shouted, "What the hell are you doing? Why haven't you called them?"

Cox, who was clearly reticent about using his position in government to direct a company to file for bankruptcy, sheepishly offered that he wasn't certain if it was appropriate for him to make such a call.

"You guys are like the gang that can't shoot straight!" Paulson bellowed. "This is your f—ing job. You have to make the phone call."

much more . . .

http://www.kelowna.com/2010/03/06/i-guess-this-is-goodbye-a-behind-the-scenes-look-at-lehman-brothers-last-gasp-before-bankruptcy/


Well worth a read.


The description of the privately owned Fed Reserve barging into the SEC office banging doors and shouting orders to the head of the SEC is rather remarkable.