Saturday, 13 September 2008

Bank of America ‘likely to win Lehman’

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Guanyu said...

Bank of America ‘likely to win Lehman’

Reuters in New York
Sep 12, 2008

Bank of America will likely win the auction for Lehman Brothers Holdings, said analyst Richard Bove, after sources said Lehman and US officials were in intensive discussions about a number of options, including a complete sale of the company.

“I believe that Bank of America will win the auction for Lehman Brothers. There is a natural fit between the two companies,” the Ladenburg Thalmann analyst said, as various reports suggested Bank of America or Barclays could be suitors for Lehman.

“If the deal is done for stock it adds to Bank of America’s equity. This deal would be a major plus if the bank wins it,” Mr Bove wrote in a note to clients.

Lehman needs Bank of America to lower its borrowing costs and to portfolio its commercial real estate loans, Mr Bove said.

In addition, Lehman would meaningfully increase its fixed income business if it was linked to the country’s largest credit card and mortgage company, Mr Bove added. He also noted that if a deal was done, Bank of America would get access to one of the best fixed income trading desks in the country, as well as become a “first rank player” in the equity investment banking sector.

“It [Bank of America] gains Neuberger Berman. It gains a top quality retail sales operation. It improves its standing in all types of research... It gains five years in its pursuit to be the nation’s number one underwriter,” Mr Bove said. The analyst maintained his “buy” rating on Bank of America’s stock.

However, he slightly lowered his this year earnings estimates for Bank of America to US$2.35 per share from US$2.51.

Shares of Bank of America closed at US$33.06 Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange, while those of Lehman plunged more than 40 per cent on Thursday, forcing the company into talks about a possible sale.

Lehman shares closed at US$4.22 on Thursday.

Anonymous said...

For Lehman Employees, the Collapse Is Personal

By GERALDINE FABRIKANT and ERIC DASH
September 11, 2008

In the last few days, employees of Lehman Brothers have wrung their hands as the value of their stock evaporated before their eyes. Now, many fear losing their jobs, too.

In scenes eerily reminiscent of the final days of Bear Stearns, the megawatt energy within Lehman Brothers has dimmed to a hum as employees focus on the fate of the firm and what it might mean to them. To make matters worse, pink slips for previously announced layoffs were being handed out this week.

“Everyone is walking around like they have just been Tasered,” said one Lehman employee, who, like many interviewed for this article, declined to be named because he was not authorized to talk publicly. “Everyone was always hoping we would pull through. Now, that is not really an option.”

On Lehman’s third- and fourth-floor trading floors overlooking Broadway’s lights in Midtown Manhattan, traders continued working at their terminals, or at least were giving the appearance of doing so. At the same time, many polished their résumés and contacted recruiters.

If Lehman is sold — as now appears likely — the buyer will fire many of them. And they know that tens of thousands of other Wall Streeters laid off in the tsunami sweeping the financial industry — including many recently let go from Bear Stearns — are already chasing after too few jobs.

Wall Street is used to ups and downs, but this latest round of cuts brought about by the credit crisis is turning out to be one of the worst in recent memory — a fate compounded by a shrinking economy. As of June, many of the more than 83,000 employees dismissed from banks and brokerage firms worldwide have come from firms based in the New York area.

Everyone at Lehman knows what happened at Bear Stearns: Star employees did not have a hard time finding work when Bear was sold in a fire sale this year, but JPMorgan initially kept only about 6,500 of 13,500 employees. Many are still looking for work.

As at Bear, many at Lehman have taken a hit from a plummeting stock price. From an all-time high of $86.18 a share in early 2007, the stock has plunged, closing at $4.22 Thursday.

In an arrangement that is typical of Wall Street, Lehman employees have gotten much of their pay in stock and stock options in recent years. That figure could range from 10 percent to 60 percent in Lehman stock, according to a person close to the company.

“Over the past decade an increasing amount of the compensation had been given in stock and stock options,” said Robert Willens, a tax expert who worked at Lehman from 1987 to this year. “Employees were paid in restricted stock that took several years to vest. Stock was granted at the current price.”

As recently as last week, Lehman’s stock was selling for $16 a share, and many Lehman employees were still betting that their chairman and chief executive, Richard S. Fuld Jr., would figure out a way to salvage the bank, and their future — a hope he reinforced Wednesday with assurances to Wall Street that the firm could remain standing alone.

On Thursday, those hopes ran dry as the share price plunged so low and so fast that potential suitors came out of the woodwork to see if they could snap up the 158-year-old institution for a bargain-basement price.

As employees left the firm’s Seventh Avenue headquarters Thursday, a Lehman trader said people were trying to keep a stoic face. “They are not showing anything,” he said.

As widely respected and liked as Mr. Fuld has been at the firm, now that the cold prospect of losing a life savings in Lehman stock has become more of a reality, many employees have grown resentful.

“We feel like we have been controlled by events and haven’t controlled them,” said one rank-and-file employee. “And it has just been the most punitive market. Is there frustration with the management team? Of course.” Another employee who left Lehman earlier this year lamented that he had put enough faith in the firm to retain shares — a decision he is paying for. “My children’s education fund is wiped out,” said this person.

“I’m not a millionaire like a lot of these guys. Of course this is on Dick’s hands,” he said, referring to Mr. Fuld. “It all happened on his watch.”

The investment bank said that Mr. Fuld was not available for comment.

A number of Lehman employees said the widespread support at the firm for Mr. Fuld was not as strong as it had been, largely because his strategy to save Lehman, including the partial sale of Neuberger Berman, its money management unit, would not be enough. These people said they had expected and hoped that Mr. Fuld would step aside Wednesday and let Herbert H. McDade III, the firm’s president, ascend and start anew.

Mr. Fuld himself has seen much of his wealth disappear. At the stock’s peak, his 11.4 million shares of various types of stock and 2.5 million stock options were worth about $956 million, according to James F. Reda Associates, a consulting firm. Now, they are worth only about $40 million. But employees know that Mr. Fuld has reaped rich rewards in his decade and a half at the helm.

Even if he loses his grip at Lehman, he stands to collect more. He does not have a severance agreement if he loses his job, but if he were terminated without cause, Mr. Fuld could expect to collect a $16 million pension and $5.6 million in deferred compensation.

Anonymous said...

A desperate plea to Buffett Warren by Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers Inc., Richard Fuld...

From the desk of Dick Fuld, Lehman Brothers CEO

Dear Mr. Buffett:

First off, I would like to thank you for meeting with me and my Lehman Brothers team earlier this week. The opportunity to outline our plan to you personally was the highlight of my professional career. I know that it has been a few years since you had an office in Manhattan, and we aren’t asking you to take a chair and a desk, but your steady hand at Salomon Brothers is an example of what all of us on Wall Street are so desperately seeking in these difficult times.

As I clearly outlined during our meeting, I firmly believe that an investment in Lehman Brothers by Berkshire Hathaway is a classic opportunity for your great company to, once again, buy a fabulous global franchise at a very fair price. This isn’t at all like the situation that John Gutfreund put you in, and I recognize that you are wary given your previous experience. Wall Street has changed dramatically since 1991, it is far more of a franchise business that relies on capital than the “people” business that you were once used to. As you mentioned, the $700 million Salomon deal was the single largest commitment of your career at that point; and I take your point that such sums are now just the bonus pool for the commodity division

But much has changed. Over the past year, our firm’s market capitalization has shrunk by more than $30 billion (about 75%). All of the shareholder wealth that we’ve created over the past 10 years has been completely erased in a matter of months, and yet our firm has never had brighter opportunities nor a stronger safety net. This is the investment opportunity that we see for you and the rest of the Berkshire family. You have the opportunity to invest in the brokerage industry at prices not seen for a decade.

Our firm is poised to return to greatness, and many of Bear”s clients are coming our way.

Just the other day, a survey of U.S. institutional investors by Greenwich Associates found that “among the largest players, [Lehman and JP Morgan] scored highest in providing their [fixed income] clients the best support and understanding during the market turmoil.” This survey, conducted between February and April, also found that while JPMorgan was found to have slightly more institutional trading relationships, Lehman Brothers had slightly more market share.

What this survey will confirm for you is that our trading desk has continued to serve our many international clients, even when other brokerage firms were pulling back. This bodes well for the next Bull Market.

I have spoken to both the Treasury Secretary and Chairman Bernanke, and they are prepared to assure you personally that Lehman will continue to have access to the Fed’s discount window for many years to come, if so required. As such, our firm cannot fail in the traditional sense. The federal government’s balance sheet is impregnable. This is an investment circumstance that rarely presents itself in the lifetime of any investor; even one as successful as your own.

We are very reluctant to raise capital at this juncture. Our recent $6 billion equity raise was intended to help us weather even the worst storm. I understand that some intermediaries reached out to you at that time, and that you rightly advised that your modus operandi was not to invest in a club format. I regret that anyone troubled you with the idea back in May, and recognize that by passing then, as you said in our meeting, you avoided suffering the 44% drop in our shares since that deal was announced on June 10th.

Your wisdom is clear. But this time it will be different.

As we discussed, approximately $145 billion of long-term debt is outstanding including current year maturities of $18.5 billion with $8 billion of commercial paper. We have a plan to deal with these debt tranches, but recognize that a partnership with you would be a tremendous asset when we return to the debt markets. My Treasury team advises that we could save in excess of 200 basis points on our medium term paper if Berkshire agreed to be our strategc investor prior to commencing our current year debt refinancing activities.

The investors who joined our shareholder group in June recognize that much of what has happened over the past 5 weeks was unforseen. But no one likes losses, paper or otherwise. That being said, they will be elated if you join their ranks, let me assure you of that. That old saying, “dilution is your friend”, rings all the more true when the name “Buffett” is involved in the dilution.

My partners and I are prepared to consider a $5 billion convertible preferred investment, paying an 8% annual cash yield, with redemption and retraction rights in, say, 20 years. Our stock rallied yesterday on the back of the positive news out of Wells Fargo. But, with a sensible discount to yesterday’s closing price of $16.65, your firm would own approximately 33% of our Company, at closing. Naturally, we would very much want you to consider joining our Board of Directors at the earliest opportunity. Other names would be welcome as well.

As we both know, an announcement that Berkshire had agreed to invest capital in our firm would propel both LEH shares and the broader bank index. If yesterday’s rally is any indication, you could earn a 25% return in a single day merely on the news of your financial commitment to me and our franchise.

I appreciate that you have been displeased with the role that you believe Wall Street has directly played in the credit crisis of the past 12 months. I noted that, during our meeting, you specifically named Lehman and Bear Stearns as two of the financial institutions that were at the forefront of the growth in the CDO, CLO, ABS, subprime and credit swap markets.

As you know, the job of an investment bank is to bring to market the products that the market wants to buy. Although we pride ourselves in our Top 5 ranking in the M&A tables, the fees generated on advisory assignments pale in comparison to the revenue that flows from the underwriting side of our industry, whether it be equity, structured products or debt. I took your point that Wall Street must play a “quality control” role in the process of selling products to our clients, and I strongly believe that we did our utmost on that front.

We were so convinced that these vehicles were money machines that we bought them for the accounts of our own captive hedge funds. We put our money where our mouths were.

I understand that you are also dubious about the long term capability of the hedge fund industry to produce returns that exceed your sense of market norms. I have two points to make on that front.

Hedge Funds are a key revenue driver on our trading desks, and excellent Prime Brokerage clients as well. Up to 40% of our daily block trades are done for hedge fund clients. Moreover, our ability to create our own hedge funds has generated substantial fees from institutional investors and pension funds around the world. Although the recent SEC push to curtail some of the more attractive trading strategies of hedge funds such as ours may hamper our ability to beat the index, the fee streams that our funds generate are extremely valuable. Particularly at times, such as now, when the underwriting and advisory revenues are weaker than we would like.

However, if you would like a commitment from me to exit the hedge fund business, I will certainly recommend such action to the Board should you agree to our investment proposal. Although I am the leader at Lehman, I am always open to well-reasoned perspectives.

In summary, let me again thank you for agreeing to meet with us. I believe that you’ve been presented with a unique investment opportunity, and one that is sure to be successful. Your hallmark is to invest in top notch management teams, and I humbly submit that we’ve demonstrated that we can navigate difficult waters.

With your financial commitment to our firm, the sailing will be smooth, and the entire U.S. financial services industry will benefit from the rising tide that would surely follow a commitment from Berkshire. The positive impact that would have on the economy is clear, which would directly beenfit the rest of the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio of companies. This is the way that America can exit the recession that you believe we are experiencing right now.

Thank you, in advance, for your time and consideration. As Senator McCain said himself, and I passed along to you, “the country needs you”, and we are honoured that you are considering this opportunity.

Yours Sincerely,

“signed”

Richard Fuld,
Chairman and CEO
Lehman Brothers Inc.

MRM