Lehman Brothers’ stock was selling at $86 a share in February 2007, giving the company a market capitalisation of nearly $60 billion. For the year, the company reported a new record high in net income, over $4 billion. In January 2008, Lehman Brothers was the fourth-largest investment bank in the U.S. In March, immediately after Bear Stearns (the second largest holder of mortgage backed securities, right after Lehman Brothers) almost collapsed, Lehman stock dropped by almost 50%. In June, the company reported a quarterly loss of $2.8 billion, its first quarterly loss since being spun off from American Express way back in 1994. By the end of 2008, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. had vanished from the investment banking landscape, the largest corporate bankruptcy filing (with $619 billion in debt) in U.S. history. The Beginnings of Lehman Brothers Source: HBS Lehman Brothers was founded in t...
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