15:26 LEH Lehman Brothers: Barclays to buy LEH Investment Bank, save 9000 jobs - WSJ Deal Journal (0.18 -0.02) -Update-
WSJ Deal Journal reports that a Chapter 11 filing may have saved Lehman Brothers Holdings' investment bank. Barclays (BCS) has reached an agreement to buy the U.S. capital-markets businesses of Lehman and as many as 9,000 Lehman employees will find jobs with the U.K. bank, according to people familiar with the situation. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that Barclays would pay nearly $2 bln for a large chunk of Lehman. The deal is to be put before a New York bankruptcy court judge for approval at 5 p.m. Lehman's creditors are to meet at 6 p.m. An official announcement isn't expected until Wednesday morning. The deal is expected to be structured as an asset purchase, with Barclays buying only the parts of Lehman it wants: Lehman's trading positions and any contracts that come with the business, which is likely to include pending mergers and acquisitions, as well as stock- and debt-underwriting assignments. Barclays won't be buying any of Lehman's real estate, real-estate-backed securities, derivatives positions or over-the-counter trades. Lehman's European business will remain in bankruptcy proceedings. Lehman also is in separate talks to sell its investment-management unit to private-equity bidders. In a twist, Lehman's much-lamented Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing may have increased the chances that the capital markets business would be salvaged in a sale, according to a person close to the deal. In weekend talks, Barclays had proposed buying all of Lehman except the investment-management business and then separating out Lehman's toxic assets along the lines of the so-called good bank/bad bank structure Lehman had been considering before the events of last week. Those talks fell apart. Because Lehman is in bankruptcy-law protection from creditors, however, the "bad assets" can be left at the holding company level to be liquidated according to the bankruptcy court's instructions. Barclays was able to achieve the deal it wanted in the first place. (LEH is halted)
AI
