Lehman brothers collapse

On Sept. 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.1 That name may bring up images millions of people saw in the news for the first time: Hundreds of employees, mostly dressed in business suits, leaving the bank’s global offices one-by-one with bankers’ boxes in their hands. It was a somber reminder that nothing is forever—even in the richness of the financial and investment worlds.

With $639 billion in assets and $619 billion in debt, Lehman’s bankruptcy filing was the largest in history, as its assets far surpassed those of previous bankrupt giants such as WorldCom and Enron. Lehman was the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank at the time of its collapse, with 25,000 employees worldwide.

Lehman’s demise also made it the largest victim of the U.S. subprime mortgage-induced financial crisis that swept through global financial markets in 2008. Lehman’s collapse was a seminal event that greatly intensified the 2008 crisis and contributed to the erosion of close to $10 trillion in market capitalization from global equity markets in Oct. 2008—the largest monthly decline on record at the time—Read more at Investopedia. Lioudis, Nick K. “The Collapse of Lehman Brothers: A Case Study.” 26 November 2019