Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Lehman Soundbites

Lehman down 6.9% to $7.25 in regular trading; then down a further 4.6% to $6.92 in after hours trading.

They took another $7.8 billion in writedowns, resulting in a $3.9 billion loss for the most recent quarter. (At least one highly reputable source on the web had $2.8B which is not the correct figure.) The loss amounts to $5.62 a share.

They didn't release a balance sheet!

They said they are hoping to sell 55% of the investment management business, which includes Neuberger Berman. THE CROWN JEWELS! Say it ain't so!

Business (i.e., non-trading-related) revenues declined 28% for the first 9 months of '08 vs. '07. That's bad, really bad.

Moody's put their credit rating on review, saying it would be lowered from its current A2 level unless they can negotiate "a strategic transaction with a stronger financial partner."

Lehman said it is "formally engaged" in talks to sell $4 billion in British residential real estate to money manager BlackRock, expecting to complete the sale "within the next few weeks."

They cut the annual dividend to 5 cents a share from 68 cents to save $450 million annually.

They plan to spin off more than $25 billion out of its $33 billion commercial real-estate portfolio to its shareholders early next year. The new company, Real Estate Investments Global, will include money-losing stakes in apartment-building owner Archstone-Smith and California land developer SunCal.

Not a single bright point in any of that news. I won't be posting in this blog until next Wednesday. I am almost positive that something big (REALLY big) will happen before then.

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