"Lessons from Lehman Brothers: Will We Ever Learn?"
“Greed” and “Crooks” are a sampling of comments recorded on a rendering of Lehman’s chief executive Richard Fuld by artist Geoffrey Raymond, who placed his painting outside of Lehman’s New York City offices and handed out markers to employees and pedestrians so they could write a message regarding the firm’s announcement that it was filing for bankruptcy.
On September 15, 2008, financial services firm Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York. 95 That action—the largest Chapter 11 filing in financial history—unleashed a “crisis of confidence that threw financial markets worldwide into turmoil, sparking the worst crisis since the Great Depression.” The fall of this Wall Street icon is, unfortunately, not a new one, as we’ve seen in the stories of Enron, WorldCom, and others. In a report released by bankruptcy court-appointed examiner Anton Valukas, Lehman executives and the firm’s auditor, Ernst & Young, were lambasted for actions that led to the firm’s collapse. He said, “Lehman repeatedly exceeded its own internal risk limits and controls, and a wide range of bad calls by its management led to the bank’s failure.” Let’s look behind the scenes at some of the issues.
One of the major problems at Lehman was its culture and reward structure. Excessive risk taking by employees was openly lauded and rewarded handsomely. Individuals making questionable deals were hailed and treated as “conquering heroes.” On the other hand, anyone who questioned decisions was often ignored or overruled. For instance, Oliver Budde, who served as an associate general counsel at Lehman for nine years, was responsible for preparing the firm’s public filings on executive compensation. Infuriated by what he felt was the firm’s “intentional under-representation of how much top executives were paid,” Budde argued with his bosses for years about that matter, to no avail. Then, one time he objected to a tax deal that an outside
On September 15, 2008, financial services firm Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York. 95 That action—the largest Chapter 11 filing in financial history—unleashed a “crisis of confidence that threw financial markets worldwide into turmoil, sparking the worst crisis since the Great Depression.” The fall of this Wall Street icon is, unfortunately, not a new one, as we’ve seen in the stories of Enron, WorldCom, and others. In a report released by bankruptcy court-appointed examiner Anton Valukas, Lehman executives and the firm’s auditor, Ernst & Young, were lambasted for actions that led to the firm’s collapse. He said, “Lehman repeatedly exceeded its own internal risk limits and controls, and a wide range of bad calls by its management led to the bank’s failure.” Let’s look behind the scenes at some of the issues.
One of the major problems at Lehman was its culture and reward structure. Excessive risk taking by employees was openly lauded and rewarded handsomely. Individuals making questionable deals were hailed and treated as “conquering heroes.” On the other hand, anyone who questioned decisions was often ignored or overruled. For instance, Oliver Budde, who served as an associate general counsel at Lehman for nine years, was responsible for preparing the firm’s public filings on executive compensation. Infuriated by what he felt was the firm’s “intentional under-representation of how much top executives were paid,” Budde argued with his bosses for years about that matter, to no avail. Then, one time he objected to a tax deal that an outside