...1) Describe the situation at Lehman Brothers from an ethic perspective. What’s your opinion of what happened here? Lehman Brothers had a culture problem, as they incentivized there employees to take excessive risks. Their culture fostered significant risk taking. They use to reward employees with lots of money for taking risks. Individuals who made questionable deals were treated as heroes; on the other hand anyone who questioned decisions was often ignored or overruled. They use to ignore risk just hoping for outlandish profits, meaning it felt more like a casino then an investment bank. They ignored basic regulatory rules which created financial danger. Basic rules are the way companies grow and expand. Their desire to make money at all cost was more important than following basic ethical values. 2) What was the culture at Lehman Brothers like? How did this culture contribute the company’s downfall? The culture at Lehman Brothers was to take risks at all costs. When Transactions were presented to them they ignored the warning signals costing them. This eventually led to shady deals which eventually lead to the company’s downfall. Repo 105 is a good example of how Lehman misused this device to get some $50 billion of undesirable assets of its balance sheet at the end of the first and second quarter of 2008, instead of selling those assets at a loss. They continued to take lots of risks which caused them to lose a lot of money, there by bringing down there previously...
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...LEHMAN TRIKES: A STORY WITHIN A STORY Donald C. Looney, Black Hills State University CASE DESCRIPTION The primary subject matter of this case is strategic alliances. Secondary issues include business strategy, entrepreneurship and marketing. The case explores the dynamics of an alliance between Harley-Davidson and a small, entrepreneurial, niche market company, Lehman Trikes. CASE SYNOPSIS As the world was in the midst of a crippling recession, on July 22, 2008, Harley-Davidson unveiled the new Tri Glide three-wheeled motorcycle at the annual dealer meeting in Las Vegas. At the same meeting Lehman Trikes, a small but rapidly growing leading manufacturer of three-wheeled motorcycles, announced that it would be the exclusive supplier to Harley-Davidson of the Tri Glide. Ron Hutchinson, senior vice president of product development for Harley-Davidson said, “This is a big deal. The three-wheeled market is a market that we believe has been effectively underserved because it has been done in the aftermarket.” (Pitlick, Harley trikes to be built here, 2008) While the entrance of Harley-Davidson into the trike market would obviously legitimize and add enormous growth opportunities for the three-wheel segment of the motorcycle market, would it profoundly change Lehman’s environment and business model? Dan Patterson, then CEO of Lehman Trikes, would later cryptically write of the event in the 2008 Third Quarter Report, “We are truly pleased...
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...company’s financial statements. Some of the recent examples of corporate and accounting scandals were that of Enron, Adelphia, Tyco International, World Com, and Peregrine Systems, among others (Levine, 2013). The objective of this paper is to focus on and analyze one of such scandals. In this paper, the Lehman Brothers’ issue with the SEC regarding their malicious use of the Repo 105 maneuver will be studied, focusing on the audit report that the external CPA firm issued, speculations on the company’s statements, analysis of the management and auditor’s responsibility in the falsified financial reporting, the sanctions under the SOX and key actions that the concerned regulatory boards should make. Repo 105 Securities and Exchange Commission Accounting Scandal with Lehman Brothers and Ernst and Young Analysis of the Audit Report When the great financial crisis of 2008 erupted, it left a lot of United States corporations, mostly financial firms, under the water. Some of them were offered bail by the United States government but the damage was so severe plus the government could only do so much that only a handful of the bankrupted companies were saved by the bail offer. Lehman Brothers was one of the unfortunate companies...
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...The crumble of the Lehman Brothers undertook the world by storm. The Lehman Brothers was the leading mortgage broker in the across the globe for centuries. When they filed for bankruptcy in 2008 the financial world was crippled. Over 25,000 employees lost their jobs and livelihood due to the fact that this bankruptcy uprooted their lives and deserted them with absolutely nothing. The Lehman Brothers assets calculated up to $639 billion while their debt equaled to $619 billion (Case study: The collapse of lehman brothers, n.d.). This enormous volume of money for bankruptcy summed up to be the greatest bankruptcy in accounting financial history. This is clearly not the record the Lehman Brothers were attempting to break, but it was the reality. This catastrophe interposed to the $10 trillion in market capitalization that has affected the finance worldwide for the month of October 2008 (Case study: The collapse of lehman brothers, n.d.). This exploit devastated the stock market, the economy, the employees, and the families who trusted the Lehman Brothers company to use them to finance their home loans. Henry Lehman, a German immigrant, started a diminutive conventional store in 1844 and that was established in Montgomery, Alabama (Case study: The collapse of lehman brothers, n.d.). Then by 1850 Henry, Mayor, and Emanuel created Lehman Brothers the mortgage broker company (Case study: The collapse of lehman brothers, n.d.). The organization flourished as the nation grew...
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...Introduction History of Lehman Brothers Subprime Crisis Explained Vicious circle & the fall of Lehman Brothers Organizational Culture at Lehman Brothers Future Conclusion Introduction Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, aka the fourth-largest investment financial institution in the US (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch), was a 158 years old bank that had to declare its bankruptcy in September 2008. Led by its CEO, Richard Fuld, Lehman Brothers was a glorious and respected investment bank for which some of the most experienced and intelligent financial analysts/investors were working. How come then, than in a less than one week, the whole structure imploded and led to one historical bankruptcy and with the same occasion, became the trigger of the 2nd most dramatic worldwide financial crisis? This essay has been written, in what seemed to me, the most logical way to approach this very interesting and complex subject. A quick peak to Lehman Brothers’ history will help the reader to understand how, starting from very humble origins, Lehman Brothers became one of the top investment financial institutions in the US before its collapse. The financial crisis of 2008, also called the subprime crisis was the biggest reason of LB’s downfall. Having done some researches, the reader will be explained, in a very intuitive but complete manner, how this crisis began and how it evolved until it affected the whole world. One can already agree that LB’s got caught...
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...Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative University of New Mexico http://danielsethics.mgt.unm.edu Banking Industry Meltdown: The Ethical and Financial Risks of Derivatives INTRODUCTION The 2008–2009 global recession was caused in part by a failure of the financial industry to take appropriate responsibility for its decision to utilize risky and complex financial instruments. Corporate cultures were built on rewards for taking risks rather than rewards for creating value for stakeholders. Unfortunately, most stakeholders, including the public, regulators, and the mass media, do not always understand the nature of the financial risks taken on by banks and other institutions to generate profits. Problems in the subprime mortgage markets sounded the alarm in the 2008–2009 economic downturn. Very simply, the subprime market was created by making loans to people who normally would not qualify based on their credit ratings. The debt from these loans was often repackaged and sold to other financial institutions in order to take it off lenders’ books and reduce their exposure. When the real estate market became overheated, many people were no longer able to make the payments on their variable rate mortgages. When consumers began to default on payments, prices in the housing market dropped and the values of credit default swaps (the repackaged mortgage debt, also known as CDSs) lost significant value. The opposite was supposed to happen. CDSs were sold as a method of insuring against loss. These...
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...Lehman Brothers & Repo 105 On September 15th 2008, the fourth largest U.S investment bank, Lehman Brothers, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. With revenues peaking at $19.2 billion in 2007 and over $600 billion in assets, the collapse of Lehman became the largest bankruptcy in history. Lehman’s demise was attributed to their aggressive investment strategy and significant exposure to the subprime mortgage market. As the housing bubble grew, Lehman Brothers acquired several mortgage lenders, some of the acquired firms frequently made loans to home buyers without full documentation (Jeffers 2011). When consumers began defaulting on mortgages and market conditions began to unravel, Lehman as well as many other banks faced huge losses. The write down of debt securities had significant adverse effects on Lehman’s balance sheet. Furthermore, credit rating agencies began focusing more on leverage ratios of investments banks. Lehman’s leverage ratios were already extremely high. A downgrade on Lehman’s credit rating would have sent Lehman’s share price on a downward spiral and hinder their ability to receive financing. In order to prevent these occurrences Lehman would have to sell some of its assets or raise capital. Lehman was unable to sell any of its assets or raise any capital because no one knew what the value of their complex mortgage securities were. In response to deteriorating economic conditions the investment bank used a very aggressive accounting maneuver...
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...The main issue of this case is whether Josie Esquivel should stay at Lehman Brothers or accept Morgan Stanley’s job offer. There are three possible alternatives to solve this problem, which are (1) stay at Lehman Brothers; (2) accept Morgan Stanley’s offer; (3) Leave Lehman Brothers and find and another job but not to accept the offer of Morgan Stanley. Following are feasibility analysis of each alternative. Stay at Lehman Brothers Strengths: • Esquivel can continue to build her franchise • Lehman’s research department was ranked number one on the Institutional Investor’s All-America Research Team • Fred Fraenkel was in charge of Lehman’s research department, which means Esquivel can work comfortably with her colleague. Also, she was personally very loyal to him. • The Lehman’s performance evaluation system was fair Weaknesses: • Esquivel was not financially rewarded for her performance • Lehman was not investing considerable resources in Esquivel’s sector • Esquivel’s trust relationships were gone with Lehman’s cost cutting • In order to keep successful in her industry, Esquivel needed to conduct a larger workload with lesser resources and little appreciation. • Lack of competition; characterized life at Lehman had dissipated during the late eighties The feasibility of this alternative is very low. According to the strengths and weaknesses analysis above, the challenge of Esquivel is very small if she stays at Lehman Brothers. However, Esquivel concluded that she...
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...Sandra Griffin Learning Team Reflection Stephanie Ledford - Introduction Henry Lehman, a German immigrant, founded a small grocery store in Montgomery, Alabama in 1844. Then in 1850 along with his two brothers they founded Lehman Brothers. Lehman Brothers started as a general merchandising business and evolved into a commodities broker (Investopdeia Staff, 2009). The American Civil War would prove to be an early challenge, followed by the Great Depression in the early part of the 20th Century. The swift development of railroads across the United States was an advantage the Lehman Brothers were able to utilize and led the company to serve as financial advisors and underwriters for the railroad companies. In 1920, Robert Lehman became a partner and moved into a leadership role. He centered his leadership role on the belief that consumption was the key versus production. Because of this firm belief, Lehman Brothers prospered with financing for airline and motion picture companies. The age of electric in the 1950’s, capital market growth in the 1960’s, the rise of international business in the 1970’s, and the focus of mergers and acquisitions in the 1980’s helped Lehman Brothers grow as a company. From the outside, it appeared that Lehman Brothers was performing well as a company. The bubble burst for the company in 2008 when the subprime mortgage lending crises hit the United States. Lehman Brothers filed bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, and is the largest company to file...
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...Lehman Brothers Was a global financial services firm. Before declaring bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the US (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch), doing business in investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales and trading (especially U.S. Treasury securities), research, investment management, private equity, and private banking. At 1:45AM on September 15, 2008, the firm filed for bankruptcy protection following the massive exodus of most of its clients, drastic losses in its stock, and devaluation of its assets by credit rating agencies. Lehman's bankruptcy filing is the largest in US history, and is thought to have played a major role in the unfolding of the late-2000s global financial crisis. The following day, Barclays announced its agreement to purchase, subject to regulatory approval, Lehman's North American investment-banking and trading divisions along with its New York headquarters building. On September 20, 2008, a revised version of that agreement was approved by US Bankruptcy Court Judge James M. Peck. The next week, Nomura Holdings announced that it would acquire Lehman Brothers' franchise in the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan, Hong Kong and Australia, as well as Lehman Brothers' investment banking and equities businesses in Europe and the Middle East. The deal became effective on October 13, 2008. History Under the Lehman family (1850–1969) In 1844, 23-year-old Henry Lehman, the son of a cattle...
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...Lehman History Lehman Brothers had humble origins, tracing its roots back to a small general store that was founded by German immigrant Henry Lehman in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1844. In 1850, Henry Lehman and his brothers, Emanuel and Mayer, founded Lehman Brothers. While the firm prospered over the following decades as the U.S. economy grew into an international powerhouse, Lehman had to contend with plenty of challenges over the years. Lehman survived them all – the railroad bankruptcies of the 1800s, the Great Depression of the 1930s, two world wars, a capital shortage when it was spun off by American Express in 1994, and the Long Term Capital Management collapse and Russian debt default of 1998. However, despite its ability to survive past disasters, the collapse of the U.S. housing market ultimately brought Lehman Brothers to its knees, as its headlong rush into the subprime mortgage market proved to be a disastrous step. As the credit crisis erupted in August 2007 with the failure of two Bear Stearns hedge funds, Lehman's stock fell sharply. During that month, the company eliminated 2,500 mortgage-related jobs and shut down its BNC unit. In addition, it also closed offices of Alt-A lender Aurora in three states. Even as the correction in the U.S. housing market gained momentum, Lehman continued to be a major player in the mortgage market. In 2007, Lehman underwrote more mortgage-backed securities than any other firm, accumulating an $85-billion portfolio, or four times...
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...interesting behind-the-scenes account of the people within government and finance who saw the crisis up close. For those interested in what went down behind closed doors, Sorkin's “ Too Big To Fail” is essential. Thanks to his global access to the individuals involved, the interested reader can expand his or her knowledge about the events behind the events. Too Big To Fail begins in riveting fashion at J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon's Park Avenue apartment the day before the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Having spent part of the previous evening at the New York Fed, Dimon knew better than most what was ahead, and in a conference call with his top lieutenants, Dimon dismissed the view - one held by Lehman CEO Richard Fuld no less - that the prominent investment bank would be saved by Washington. Dimon's take was "That's wishful thinking. There is no way, in my opinion, that Washington is going to bail out an investment bank. Nor should they (my emphasis)." Instead, Dimon told the listeners on the call that "We need to prepare right now for Lehman Brothers filing. And for Merrill Lynch filing. And for AIG filing. And for Morgan Stanley filing." Before each company mention Dimon paused, then paused the longest ahead of his last warning, that his employees should prepare for the potential bankruptcy of Goldman Sachs. With the stage set, Sorkin then takes readers on a fascinating journey into a financial crisis that will not soon be forgotten. Indeed, by the end of the book the makeup of the symbol that is...
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...Question 1: From this case study, it showed how Lehman Brothers walked down to the end of it business. Through Lehman Brothers’ case, it reflects the ugly side of a corporate. A big recognized company collapse due to it unsuccessful leadership management, culture and dishonesty by it people caused the company walked down to the end of it business. There are several points showed how it gone bankrupted. By using the ethical perspective to look at Lehman Brothers’ situation, it showed that the company being dishonest to it clients, failure in the company leadership and corporate management are the major problems that lead to the company downfalls. As a Wall Street icon, they disappointed the public and being irresponsible towards their actions, against the ethnical issue by not being honest to review the actual situation of the company, but using others method to cover it annual report. In my opinion, the top management is the main issue that caused the downfall of Lehman Brothers. According to the case study, it mentioned the major problem at Lehman was culture and reward, it showed the top management of the company did not have a structure way to motivate and guide their employees on the appropriate way of doing tasks. For example, individuals who makes questionable deals were hailed and treated as “conquering heroes” and the others who questionable the decision was often being ignored. This shows that the company only wants to have short term earning instead of...
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...Merrill Lynch (now as Subsidiary of Bank of America), Lehman Brothers and Bear Steams (sold to JPMorgan Chase) were the world top five investment banks in United States. They were the key players in the financial markets and make significant contribution to the economics. But when they failed, the consequences would also be extremely fatal. The 158 years old Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday 1:45am, September 15, 2008 (“Wikipedia: Lehman Brothers”, July 15, 2013). With a total assets of $639 billion and $619 billion in debts, Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy filing became the largest in history, It’s assets far surpassed those of previous bankrupt giants such as WorldCom and Enron (“IInvestopedia: Case Study", April 02, 2009). The collapse of the Lehman Brothers is contagious and even triggered the Global Financial Crisis. LEHMAN BROTHERS HISTORY Three brothers – Henry Lehman, Emanuel Lehman and Mayer Lehman in 1850, founded Lehman Brothers. Started as a normal dry-goods store, the brothers grew the business by buying and selling cotton to planters living in and around Montgomery, Alabama ("History of Lehman Brothers", n.d). Eventually the brothers built a cotton storage warehouse together with a cotton merchant John Wesley Durr in a brief partnership form. Thereafter in 1858, an office in New York was opened to fulfill the needs of the growing sales and trades. After Civic War, Lehman Brothers who already have a strong pressure in the...
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...------------------------------------------------- Lehman Brothers Collapse ------------------------------------------------- Lehman Brothers Collapse Executive Summary The following report discusses and analyzes the events leading up to the failure of Lehman Brothers as well as outcomes and repercussions of one of the largest bankruptcy cases to date. The first part of this paper describes the primary factors that contributed to the ultimate demise of Lehman Brothers. The main factors that lead to the crisis include, but are not limited to; the misrepresentation of financial statements, a complete lack of internal control, accounting as well as management collusion, managerial fraud, increased moral hazard, and the overpayment of executives within the firm. Misrepresentation of the financial statements and the misuse of accounting practices was the main reason for the Collapse of Lehman Brothers. It was said that upper management violated the Sarbanes-Oxley Act through the use of questionable and unethical accounting practices, more specifically through the use of Repo 105 transactions. The second part of this paper addresses the underlying causes and issues relative to the study of financial ethics. This paper also addresses those who were involved as well as affected by the events that took place in the Lehman Brothers scandal. After evaluating the reasons for Lehman Brothers failure, the report discusses possible courses of action to take in order...
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