Filed under: Lehman Br Holdings (LEH)
As my colleague Doug McIntyre posted this morning, the New York Times reports that Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LEH) plans to cut 1,500 jobs — that’s 6% of its workforce and Lehman has already terminated 6,000 staffers since June 2007. While Lehman has been a big player in mortgage origination and securitization, there is also the potential for cuts in other lines — such as investment banking and trading, according to the Times. Since the credit crunch is so enormous in scale and scope, there may simply not be enough demand for Lehman to survive in its current form.
Lehman is expected to have a rough quarter. The Times reports that it could take a “$4 billion loss for the quarter of $3.30 a share.” Much of the loss is due to its mortgage- and asset-backed securities — of which it owns “about $61 billion.” And since there is no market for them, Lehman must write down their value and take a charge against earnings and capital. Meanwhile after dropping 71% in the last year, Lehman’s stock market value is roughly a sixth of the size of that portfolio of dodgy securities.
Lehman has evidently leaked several options for raising capital — to add to the $6 billion it got earlier this year. The Times reports that these include “the sale of Lehman’s investment management division, which includes Neuberger Berman and could fetch $7 billion to $10 billion. Other options include the sale of about $40 billion of troubled commercial real estate, and the creation of a separate unit that would be owned by Lehman shareholders and house a substantial portion of Lehman’s commercial and residential mortgage assets, freeing the investment bank to try to move forward.”
Continue reading Why a drop in demand could end Lehman
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