The quest to turn lead to gold is an old one, and as such we generally treat claims to have discovered the Philosopher’s Stone with skepticism. Great alchemists as memorable as Sir Isaac Newton have met with ignominious failure (and developed life-long cases of cracked, sulfur smelling, chemically burnt skin to boot). So, when Barclehs announces the discovery of the financial Philosopher’s Stone, we did that little closed-mouthed sniffle-laugh and switched into skim-mode.

Barclays Capital, the investment banking division of Barclays PLC, today announces that it has completed the integration of the North American businesses of Lehman Brothers acquired in September 2008. As the final step in the integration, it has strengthened the leadership of the expanded firm by promoting eight senior Managing Directors to its Executive Committee.
Bob Diamond, President, Barclays PLC, said: “The completion of the integration is a significant milestone for our clients, shareholders and employees, four months after announcing the acquisition. Our clients now have the benefit of a fully integrated investment bank able to offer the full array of risk management, financing and advisory products. We are now operating as one firm using our business principles to manage risk, manage costs and stay close to our clients. As we said, we targeted breakeven for the acquired businesses in 2008, and in fact they are already contributing to the bottom line.”

We did, however, notice that grim reality must be setting in. After all, who targets “breakeven” for the discovery of the Philosopher’s Stone?
Barclays Capital Completes Integration of Lehman Brothers; Expands Its Executive Committee [Barclehs AlchemyCapital]

Comments (20)

  1. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 10:30 AM

    First to post and see that you’ve ballsed up the whole site with the Alchemy strikethrough joke.
    This will be corrected by the time this comment goes up

  2. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 10:32 AM

    ha it’s gone now. no one will understand the first comment

  3. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 10:32 AM

    I will strike through your soul!

  4. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 10:35 AM

    Note: remember to close HTML tags.

  5. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 10:38 AM

    Isn’t McGee the only Lehman guy on this committee? (Ritossa doesn’t count because he left Lehman in the late 90′s.)

  6. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 10:43 AM

    @5
    Gerry Donini is ex-LEH runs Equities and is a quality person

  7. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 10:44 AM

    From what I’ve seen, the integration of Barclehs has gone well…

  8. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 10:59 AM

    Gillibrand is sort of doable isn’t she? Even if she isn’t I laugh in the face of sad little Andy Cuomo who gets to go back to the AG’s office today. Hey Andy-STFU would ya?

  9. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 11:01 AM

    Apparently BofA can learn a thing or 2 from Barclays about how to integrate properly.

  10. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 11:03 AM

    To say that the integration has been completed is a stretch..

  11. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 11:10 AM

    10-why do you say that? Both sides have been working like dogs since Sept. to get this done.

  12. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 11:13 AM

    @11
    You mean as opposed to ML taking BoA doggystyle.

  13. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 11:15 AM

    @13 Wouldn’t you agree that John Thain “integrated” his cock into Ken Lewis’ ass pretty elegantly as well?

  14. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 11:23 AM

    ~14 yes I would agree..Also think Ken Lewis wishes he got Fuld’s Dick integrated in his ass instead…what a F’n loser – hahaha…
    Question – Is Ken Lewis a bigger Sucker or is John Thain a bigger Hustler??

  15. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 11:49 AM

    13 – not wrong. Have a suspicion that this is a bit like W’s ‘Mission Accomplished’. Yeah, you might have conquered the country, but there’s an awful lot of internal fighting that can happen after that…

  16. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 12:13 PM

    I’m sure they’re doing way better than, for example, somebody new in a job with no experience whatsoever. Not mentioning any names.

  17. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 12:13 PM

    This deal is so far from being over or successful that it is comical. Expect massive layoffs and losses as BarcLehman starts to figure out what they have and who they employ, while the British government dictates pay, risk and lending standards going forward. Bob Diamond is a bigger chump than Ken Lewis any day.

  18. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 12:25 PM

    Last Trade: 2.88
    Trade Time: 12:24PM ET
    Change: 0.51 (15.05%)
    yeah, a trainwreck

  19. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 12:37 PM

    …and everyone gets paid in stock! bwahhahahah…

  20. Posted by guest | January 23, 2009 at 3:48 PM

    this firm is going down the toilet hole right now..

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