The mood was somber in the packed auditorium at Lehman Brothers international headquarters at Canary Wharf. “It’s over,” said Christian Meissner, the co-head of Lehman’s European and Middle Eastern operations, as he explained that bankruptcy administrators were in charge of the 158-year-old investment bank after desperate talks to work out a deal in New York failed over the weekend.
It certainly is over for Lehman’s 25,000 employees, who have lost a large portion of their fortunes as the firm’s stock has fallen and who are now frantically searching for work.
But for the rest of the financial world, the dire consequences of Lehman’s failure are just beginning. World markets fell, and the dollar wavered as investors everywhere sold assets across the board and sought refuge in the safest securities they could find, government bonds. A guessing game has begun about what the effects of Lehman’s historic default will be.
In particular, fear spread Monday on trading desks that one of the large hedge funds with ties to Lehman Brothers might be caught in the position of having assets at the firm that they would not be able to access – thus increasing fears of a run for the doors by panicky clients.
Read it all. The NBC Evening News last night had its first four stories on the financial crisis–that doesn’t happen very often.