Lehman Bros bank files for bankruptcy

This Associated Press video from London, England about Lehman Brothers bank says about itself:

Interviews with staff who have been let go, boxes being moved

SHOTLIST

1. Pan of woman carrying box out of building
2. Lehman Brothers employees by window
3. Security outside Lehman Brothers building entrance
4. Pan of man walking with box inside building
5. Employees standing outside building
6. Pan of man carrying poster and briefcase
7. Tracking shot of man walking, UPSOUND Reporter (English) “Excuse me sir, how are you feeling,” Man (English) “How do you think?”
8. Set up of fired trader Jack Reynolds
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Jack Reynolds, ex-employee of Lehman Brothers “I don’t know anything more than you, I’ve only been here a week, graduate scheme and so my career has been halted at the first hurdle. And that’s it.”
10. Mid of staff
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Burhan Uddin, Employee in Finance department: “Things still need to be done, business as usual as far as I know.” (Reporter : “Everyone we’ve spoken to has said basically is that everyone’s job is gone.”) “Well, that’s not what we’ve been told in Finance.”
12. Wide of assembled media around staff
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Trush Patel, Employee in Finance department: “It’s very mysterious, people just walking around not sure what’s happening. Some people are wrapping up all their belongings, some spending all their credit on their canteen cards.”
14. Man leaving building with box
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Edouard D’Archimbaud, Trader fired on his first day at work: “A lot of headhunters calling us, so I think there are many possibilities but, you know, there are a lot of people at Lehman, fired today, a lot of people at Merrill Lynch probably fired in a couple of hours or days, I don’t know.”
16. Media with D’Archimbaud
17. Mid of woman selling newspapers – headline reading “5000 jobs go as banks crash.”
18. Headline of London daily newspaper Evening Standard reading “Black Monday.”
19. Tracking shot of fired employee carrying box walking down to escalator on London Tube

STORYLINE

The British operations of US investment bank Lehman Brothers were placed in administration on Monday to protect them from creditors, the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers said, while Lehman’s parent company in the United States filed a bankruptcy petition there.

Lehman Brothers employs about 5-thousand people in the United Kingdom. Employees carrying boxes and bags were filmed walking out of Lehman’s London offices on Monday. Employees of the bank, some fired, some still with jobs told of their surprise and confusion at the job losses and they spoke to the media outside their London headquarters in Canary Wharf.

While many employees lost their jobs Monday morning, some in the finance department said that they expected to stay on at work for a little time yet. … One French employee, trader Edouard D’Archimbaud, who arrived from France yesterday for his first day of work, said that headhunters had been on the phone in the morning, and that he felt confident other jobs would turn up for those fired. However, he warned “there are a lot of people at Lehman, fired today, a lot of people at Merrill Lynch probably fired in a couple of hours or days.”

From the BBC:

The fourth-largest investment bank in the US, Lehman Brothers, has filed for bankruptcy protection, amid a growing global financial crisis.

Lehman had incurred losses of billions of dollars in the US mortgage market.

The move threatens to deal a further blow to the global financial system, as banks unwind their deals with Lehman.

Merrill Lynch, also stung by the credit crunch, has agreed to be taken over by Bank of America in a dramatic weekend of events for Wall Street.

See also here. And here. And here. And here.

Wall Street jobs cull begins as Lehman rescue bid fails, here.

Lehman Brothers plans to ‘celebrate’ 10th anniversary of collapse branded ‘sickening’: here.

Ten years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers: here.

THE CONTAGION SPREADS TO DEMOCRACY Ten years after the financial crisis, the catastrophic blow to public faith in American institutions has spread to democracy itself. [HuffPost]

Adam Tooze’s Crashed: The limitations of a Left-liberal historian. By Nick Beams, 22 September 2018. The historian Adam Tooze has published a detailed account of the origins and development of the global financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath.