Another day another line in the sand drawn

The Federal Reserve Board announced an $85 billion loan to AIG in exchange for a 79.9% equity stake in the company. The Fed, along with the US Treasury, consider AIG too big, too interconnected to fail. The good news is the Fed might actually turn a profit on the deal. The Fed's hope is that AIG will be able to ride out the current storm in the credit markets and get back on its feet again. When that occurs, the Fed will cash in their equity stake and pay back the loan. Let's hope this works.
Apparently the "line in the sand" the Fed drew with Lehman Brothers can shift. It seems that sand line is actually calculated on a case by case basis. The criteria being how big the company is and what impact its failure will be on the US and world economy. Lehman Brothers just didn't qualify for a direct bailout. A year ago LEH's market capitalization was $33 billion, now it's in bankruptcy proceedings and selling off its assets at bargain basement prices. Barclays bank is offering $250 million for LEH's North American investment banking and trading operations. Barclays is also paying $1.5 billion for the LEH New York headquarters and 2 New Jersey data centers. The deal is subject to approval by the bankruptcy court. The deal would save almost 10,000 LEH employees from job loss. This makes me believe the court will have no problems with it, unless it considers the price way,way,way too low.
Here's another interesting development in the LEH bankruptcy, JPMorgan Chase (JPM)advanced LEH $87 million Monday morning to allow LEH to continue its trading operations and avoid disruptions to financial markets. The New York Federal Reserve Board reimbursed JPM for this. Apparently the treasury secretary's refusal to bail out LEH did not apply to loans made after no deal was reached and LEH decided to file chapter 11 bankruptcy. On Tuesday, JPM advanced LEH another $51 million. The bankruptcy court judge also appointed JPM as LEH's clearing house for its trading operation during the proceeding. This means that JPM has put $138 million into LEH to fund its trading operations in 2 days. This is over 50% of Barc's offer of $250 million for trading and investment banking operations. What this means is beyond me, if anyone out there has any knowledge on this please share it in the comments section.

Praise for The Feds!!!

Here in Mt. Washington, It is Monday morning and the Federal Reserve Board's meeting failed to arrange a buyer for Lehman Brothers(LEH). The Feds refused to provide any funding or guarantees for a buyer of LEH so no one offered to buy it. Bank of America, one of the potential buyers of LEH did buy Merrill Lynch(MER)for $50 billion. LEH will file for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
I am very pleased with the feds decision not to fund the purchase of LEH. The American taxpayers have already bailed out too many companies. We cannot afford to keep protecting investors from the risks they took on when they invested in subprime real estate. The credit markets need a correction and the sooner it starts the sooner the markets will recover. In my opinion, the bailout of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac was good money after bad. Hopefully I am wrong and the Fannie/Freddie buyout will help stabilize the market in the long term. Today and this week will be an interesting one for Wall Street and the financial services sector of our economy.

P.S. Remember yesterday's post saying that LEH was the most urgent concern? The meeting also was concerned about other financial services firms in dire straits. Two of the other firms on the short list of troubled companies are Washington Mutual, the largest savings bank in America and American International Group(AIG), one of the world's largest insurance companies. More to come on these companies soon.