Lehman Brothers' Last Weekend

and then in the middle of the night we got an email text so that the firm had filed for bankruptcy bankruptcy bankruptcy bankruptcy its bankruptcy hi my name is Loveleen Sidhu join pots Mohammed green a plain gray Luis Sanchez that's Ana's men one week before the US Open was taking place and a lot of senior people were there watching the game and I was there that was a very interesting week Bear Stearns our collapse and the next once in line Lehman Brothers we never thought it was gonna collapse but they talked him on some of the clients in there in the suite was the bank was not in very good shape there certainly was all throughout the spring and summer feeling that somehow the senior executives would find a way to pull something out to save the firm and with what somebody would come in and bail us out like their Stern's there was definitely some anxiety in the office and there had been a tremendous amount of focus on Lehman Brothers in the press I personally thought we were going to be merged we had gone through the LTCM Motel Capital Management Russia crisis and we survived the constant ringing of phones so that's very vivid memory with people clients trying to get information and we could not talk to them because we did not know on Friday September 12 I think that most people left the office assuming that over the weekend we would find out whether we were going to be purchased by Bank of America or Barclays Friday morning we got a phone call to head out to a law firm and that's where we met with business heads from Bank of America and essentially they were doing due diligence on us and I kind of heard in the hallways while I was working on other things rumors about Bank of America and Barclays in particular anyone who we could we talked with so we thought that he's some sort of bailout there was no expectation that the firm was going to file for bankruptcy the stock started to go lower and lower and a lot of us thought we should buy buy more stock because there's no way it's gonna get lower I felt you know a little bit like you feel when you have a family member in the hospital I remember that weekend very vividly I was working very hard from home I finally got a call I think it was maybe Saturday morning and so I ran into the office fielding a lot of phone calls putting it together a lot of spreadsheets I was looking back at emails that were going back and forth between my family and my friends and I remember sending an updated resume to my brother was I worried if I would have a job on Monday yeah I think everyone was because there was too much stuff that was in the media [Music] well that Sunday is I think that leave it to live in infamy then Sunday I ran Race for the Cure in Central Park and as soon as the race was over actually I was walking back to my apartment and I got a phone call from one of the senior managers he asked me to come to the office he was calling from the Fed early part of the day we had felt that there was going to be a deal with Barclays and we'll be saved the reason I had to go back to the office was to start printing out lists of our partners on all of our real estate investments because the way the deals went if we were acquired the other partner had to tell the other partner who they were dealing with going forward we had to get the British regulator to agree and alistair darling he didn't want this cancer to go to the UK later that afternoon around three or four o'clock I stopped getting phone calls and I remember my wife came in and said you know what's going on and I said to her remember this I think Lehman is history we got an email from the head of the group and he was calling us to meet I started printing out those documents and then all of a sudden the guy who called me came in and said stop printing we all met there these are some of the people in my group and we're having drinks and I guess at some point we were feeling that this nightmare is gonna be over soon and I'm here a few pounds heavier and I said why and he said Bank of America is not buying us looks like they're buying Merrill Lynch and Barclays the FSA has stated that Barclays cannot buy us without shareholder approval and so all of a sudden what was that whence a celebration but was we were really happy turned into there is no one also we're told that there is a possibility that we might not have access to the building the day after so that's why a lot of people those who could race to 745 7th Avenue I went home turn on the TV watched all the people with boxes leaving the building when I got back to the floor to the trading floor which usually is empty on a Sunday it was packed [Music] we were drinking beer and smoking inside and so that was this real event for us and so what is what is the feeling is the feeling that bankruptcy is inevitable now is that the concern I think so and then the middle of the night we got an email text so that the firm had filed for bankruptcy bankruptcy so I was there when that email was being drafted our counsel they had to put together probably the quickest bankruptcy papers ever done ironically for the largest bankruptcy in the history of the world the number of us actually reviewed that email and kind of had a hand in the tone and and just making sure that we were saying what needed to be said do the one thing I learned that night is the number of shoes that women have under their desks so I didn't sleep very well that night and was at the office at 6:00 a.m. it was a historic day with Wall Street's shaken to it's very foundation today and even the health of the most trusted firms are now being called into question I got up on Monday morning put my suit on got on metro-north went to the city just like any other day and I didn't know if I had a job I think that morning everybody was going in that building I actually graduated in 2008 and had six weeks of training with Lehman before I started full-time and my first day on the job is actually September 15th which was the bankruptcy our manager brought us into a room and just said we went bankrupt I think I was like 22 at the time well what does bankruptcy mean and we were just crying really just we were on in the city of shock I also was concerned we wouldn't have internet access they turn off the lights it was like an organized anarchy people were posting pictures of Dick Fuld and this CFO CEO all and people were putting all kind of jokes under the pictures and people started sending emails to each other saying goodbye people were crying hugging each other and out of your key was to look around and go what's next like like a big machine had just shut off and it was it just felt very quiet where none of us really knew what what direction anything would take yeah this video is just walking out of Lehman Brothers the last day that Lehman was streaming I just filmed the whole thing and I'm just walking out and it's basically the last elevator ride from the trading floor to to the street at the end of that day I was walking down the street to meet some friends for a drink and a homeless guy that came over to me and asked me for money and he saw my Lehman Brothers bag and he said oh no that's okay never mind Lehman was very much a family a family it was a wonderful place to work excellent culture super creative bank very progressive and that's why people stayed there a very long time I was there for ten years and most people thought to have just joined because people around me some of them had been dead for 20 years 25 years I loved working there you really felt like you were part of something very special I think about just how kind everyone was to each other so in essence it was a family and because of that we are still a very close community and over and over I have heard people say that they are happy where they are but it's not Lena [Music] well this is my ID from Lehman rollers [Music] now I've had this jacket for several decades this is my Lehman Brothers coffee mug looks like a lot of Lehman things it's very sturdy and very functional this is like I said like a Rubik's Cube yeah I don't know if you can read it but it says where vision gets built gets built right that's something none of us ever understood what it meant we are one firm defines by our unwavering commitment to our clients our shareholders and each other our mission is to build unrivaled partnerships with and value for our clients through the knowledge creativity and dedication of our people leading to superior returns for our shareholders [Music]

Channel: The Wall Street Journal

Views: 642,805

Keywords: Day Lehman, lehman brothers, Banking, History, Economic Growth, Recession, Corporate Financial Difficulty

Id: Hk_wLQDM-TI

Length: 10min 38sec (638 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 13 2018