On Sunday night, Goldman Sachs’ weekly Investment Strategy Group memo went out as it does every Sunday; as one could imagine, this week’s was a fairly fun read. Consider the title: “A ‘Lehman Moment’ Under Every Rock.” Highlights: Read More
As expected (we noted last week this would likely happen and soon), Lehman Brothers has agreed to unload its majority stake in the old Toy Building at 200 Fifth Avenue in a deal that values it at about $700 million. It is one of the biggest building sales of 2011 so far, and one of the most significant moves by the croaked investment bank’s holding company in its campaign to liquidate its real estate. The buyer is a wing of JPMorgan. Read More
When real estate executive David Sigman first walked into 25 Broad Street, about a year after Lehman collapsed, it was a funhouse of pre-2008 distractions: the lobby unfolded with yards of purple carpeting ringed by red circles into a would-be night club with dozens of crystal chandeliers and a mauve-color spa/yoga room. Most striking of all were the matching royal portraits of developer Kent Swig and his soon-to-be ex-wife, Liz Macklowe.
The Observer recently reported that the first 10 apartment tenants had signed at 25 Broad, bringing the failed condo conversion back to life as a rental—and Lehman Brothers, twitching, back with it.
Not even three years after the bank’s collapse took the economy with it, Lehman, through its holding company, lives on, a rosy zombie quietly looking to make a small fortune off prime New York properties, and maybe—just maybe—pay off some creditors. Read More
It’s looking rather post-Lehman at 25 Broad Street these days (even though the failed investment bank is still involved). The first 10 tenants have signed at the mammoth downtown residential tower of erstwhile Kent Swig fame.
Recall, Bruce Menin and his partners bought the 20-story office building for a dime in the late ’90s, before Read More
As The Wall Street Journal indicated yesterday, Attorney General and Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo is filing a civil suit against Ernst & Young, accounting firm to epically bankrupt firm Lehman Brothers.
Mr. Cuomo’s office alleges that Ernst & Young “explicitly approved” Lehman’s Repo 105 transactions, accounting moves that helped Lehman disguise its leverage levels Read More
Ernst & Young smelled what Lehman Brothers was cooking — the books! but authorities now believe the company charged with auditing the collapsed financial firm was also complicit in the company’s accounting shenanigans, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
In what may be his final act before he heads up to Albany to Read More
“Have you ever noticed,” the chairman of Citigroup, Richard D. Parsons, asked The Observer this Monday evening, “that in the NFL, or in the NBA, or in Major League Baseball, this guy was a failure at Cleveland, and then he becomes the coach in Houston? These guys just move around from one team to another. Read More
One of the most important people in finance was overlooking Central Park from his Fifth Avenue apartment, enjoying the Bach that his twin teenage daughters were playing on violin and speaking to the young Fulbright scholars from Iraq and China he’d invited for a reception. “In everything I do, I always ask myself, ‘Am I Read More
