Lehman's fate still hangs in the balance of the marketplace, rising faster as the rest of the financial stocks rise and falling faster when they dip. This morning Bloomberg has a long article on the history of Lehman's past brushes with death and, more interestingly, the history of its top man, Dick Fuld.
It's worth reading in its entirety but one thing that's not explored is the irony of the possibility that the Blackstone Group might be a buyer of Lehman. Blackstone was rumored to have mulled a bid for Bear Stearns, and many think that the buyout firm would be interested in Lehman if the brokerage stumbled. The irony is that Blackstone was founded by two former Lehmanites: Pete Peterson and Steve Schwarzman. Peterson left Lehman, which he ran for years after rising through its banking department, after years of struggling with its top trader, Lewis Glucksman. Fuld was a protege of Glucksman. A purchase by Blackstone would reverse the outcome of that decades old power struggle between bankers and traders.
Lehman Fault-Finding Points to Last Man Fuld as Shares Languish [Bloomberg]
Posted by guest , Jul 22, 2008 9:30AM
If Blackstone bought a bank, why would anyone else want to lend them money? Wouldn't they be supporting a competitor? BX's business model is predicated on sourcing financing. Wouldn't buying LEH complicate this???
Posted by guest , Jul 22, 2008 9:44AM
Hey Carney, what's up with the "it's?" Let's spruce up our grammar please.
Posted by guest , Jul 22, 2008 10:09AM
yeah fag. pay some attention to grammar.
Posted by Anal_yst , Jul 22, 2008 10:13AM
@1
You know banks finance other banks, right?
Posted by guest , Jul 22, 2008 10:28AM
What's with all the anal grammar nerds in this site?
Is this post okay?
Posted by guest , Jul 22, 2008 10:35AM
@5
No need to be ashamed of the fact that your alma mater was not accredited
Posted by guest , Jul 22, 2008 10:49AM
#6 loser. You went to a good school? Awesome!
Posted by Investorcluzo , Jul 22, 2008 10:58AM
@9:30 (something wrong about typing #1) - firstly, blackstone has been trying to cut the banks out for some time. they have their own advisory group (which means fewer fees to goldman and morgan). they are (not so) quietly building up capital market capabilities (which means they can IPO their portfolio companies. the only thing left for banks is to provide fairness opinions to make sure steve doesn't get accused of self dealing...
Posted by John Carney , Jul 22, 2008 10:58AM
Do I really need to explain my campaign to correct English usage again? I do not agree with the rulebooks and general habits of usage which instruct us not to use the apostrophe to indicate the possessive for 'it.'
It is not confusing in context. At least, it is not any more confusing than the apostrophe is in the sentence "John's new rules for indicating the possessive are awesome." For a brief moment you may suspect that the sentence is going to tell you what John is, but you quickly realize that the apostrophe is indicating possession.
Nonetheless, in a rare bow to the wisdom of the commenter crowd, I will change it for this post.
Posted by guest , Jul 22, 2008 12:34PM
JC - Going by your logic, shouldn't KKR have bought BSC? I mean Kravis is a former Bear man...
Posted by Anal_yst , Jul 22, 2008 12:47PM
@ 10
Obviously taken ad infinitum every bank would be taken out eventually
Posted by guest , Jul 22, 2008 12:58PM
Carney - Any chance you or the guys over at ATL want to take a look into the legal/regulatory hurdles for a BX/LEH deal (or a similar one)? Pretty sure there are some significant challenges to such a deal...would be interesting to see how a PE would structure it.
Posted by guest , Jul 22, 2008 3:10PM
lehman needs to merge with wachovia in order to survive
Posted by guest , Jul 22, 2008 4:38PM
WacLehvia.
Posted by BruceWayne , Jul 22, 2008 6:59PM
@#10
It almost happened. Earlier Kravis was looking to take a huge equity stake until Schwartz killed the idea. He didn't want to scare away business that would be upset with Kravis on board.
The weekend of the fire sale at Bear there was a team of KKR people going through the cooked books.
Posted by guest , Jul 22, 2008 7:51PM
JC, i could care less about grammar, but that last explanatory post made no sense to me. or am i just stupid(er than i thought)?
oh i see! no, i would not think you were trying to say 'john is'. that's why people generally read the entire sentence.