The announcement came after a frantic weekend of negotiations in which potential acquirers backed away from a deal and federal officials balked at committing taxpayer funds to help save the Wall Street giant.
The New York Times wrote :
- Short-selling against financial institutions has proved particularly lucrative for hedge funds. Mr. Einhorn’s accusations included a complaint that Lehman had been failing to properly account for its marks on troublesome holdings.
Lehman’s shares were already under pressure when he took the microphone at a large industry gathering in May to lay out his case against the investment bank. The firm, he told the crowd, had used “accounting ingenuity” to avoid large write-downs and remained tainted by bad commercial real estate investments.
Mr. Einhorn stood to profit by convincing people of his view: He had been betting against Lehman’s stock — it stood at around $40 when he spoke — since July 2007, when it traded for around $70.
While Lehman’s shares have declined as investors lost confidence in its ability to repair its balance sheet, in the four months after Mr. Einhorn’s remarks, short-selling played a role in the erosion. A rapid plunge in the shares to below $4 last week created the conditions that brought the 158-year old firm to its knees on Sunday.
For all his boldness, Mr. Einhorn is aware of the havoc that bank failures can create. “We would not win if Lehman went down and took the whole financial system with it,” Mr. Einhorn said in an interview in June. “An actual collapse of Lehman — that would not be a good thing.”
Other hedge fund managers recognize the dangers and the harm that is befalling bank employees who have been paid in their companies’ stocks. “My children, their playmates’ fathers work at Lehman,” said one manager who is short Lehman and asked to remain anonymous, citing the fragility of the situation. “Obviously I had nothing to do with what happened, and the idea that I profited, and they got clobbered, and I’ve got to see them on Monday is awkward. I feel badly for them.”
Mr. Einhorn was never shy with his criticism of Lehman. He pointed to the bank’s investments in two real estate companies, Archstone and Sun Cal, and said Lehman had not marked its mortgage assets down enough. “Lehman is one of the deniers,” he said in the June interview.
To many, Mr. Einhorn simply saw the writing on the wall early. And, hedge fund managers say, Lehman executives failed to realize how much credibility Mr. Einhorn has in the investor community. Lehman might have fared better if it had raised capital or taken write-offs far earlier, as Mr. Einhorn suggested.
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