It’s early in the morning, another September the 11th. A date that has acquired immeasurable significance in my life. Exactly 8 years ago right about now (9am Eastern Time) my office building, the north tower, was the first to be struck by the hijackers, how I survived is a tale I am not ready to recount yet. And exactly, one year ago on 9/11/2008, I was struck by another bomb, the biggest one day drop in the share price of my company Lehman Brothers. A company where I had spent 13 years, its demise was now looming large over the horizon. Jurassic Park could happen!
Feverish meetings, as a part of the CEO’s office it was my job to figure out a merger, credit lines, government bailout, anything. Fuld exhorting us to churn out reports day and night to show ourselves in a better light than what was being reflected at present. Creditors at the door asking for assurances and those were beyond us to give now. Best case scenario govt. bailout, worst case: Barclays underwrites our debt and takes us over. Nobody thought that the worse case scenario would come into play, Paulson cant/wont let it happen.
Paulson is flying down tomorrow for a meeting with a group of banks culled from the disaster already hitting the street. He took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two days ago; surely that’s a positive sign? C’mon we are Lehman, the mucho macho of them all, sure we made some mistakes but then, so did everybody else, watch out for a domino effect if you let us become a British bank. Execs going around with determined strides, with looks of pure concentration on their faces. We can do this people, we are the best of the best, we went to the best B-schools, we created the street for chrissakes, and we are going to lick this yet. I can picture the Nazi generals doing pretty much the same just before the Russians entered Berlin.
Another 9/11, hearts fluttering with fear, dread and wild hope. Just like the one 8 years ago, this one was a uniquely New York phenomenon. All over Manhattan, in lounges, bars, high priced restaurants, people speculated over daiquiris and martinis. Nobody wanted us to go down. Nobody took any perverse pleasure in seeing the Lehman execs still at work trying to work out a solution. There was overwhelming surge of sympathy all around, classmates, former colleagues, even friends who had recently lost their jobs over at Bear Sterns calling, reassuring, its going to work out just you wait and see.
Its late evening we are all still at work (contrary to reports in the media that the top brass was out for drinks). We don’t have much to do really, everything depends on the Paulson meeting tomorrow and Barclay’s response which was delayed in coming. But nobody wanted to leave, holding onto our offices in the grand building, fearing that it may all disappear overnight if we went home.
Then my phone rings, its my liaison over at Barclays, I have been in a deep relationship with this man over the past few months, he and I have spent more time together than we have with our respective partners. Wading through numbers, discussing compromises, financial scenarios, redundancies. It starts off badly and just gets worse.
Barclays needed the help of the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling. They need a waiver from British regulators of a rule requiring shareholder approval for the takeover. Alistair Darling would not give the necessary waiver. He said something to the effect that he did not want to infect Britain with America's cancer. The same man who ironically on 9/11 in 2007 had allowed Northern Rock(UK’s 5th largest mortgage lender) to go down. Why would he be concerned about Lehman?
I held onto the phone a long time after he disconnected. I had to call a meeting of the strategy group, had to brief the Fuld first. How was I going to explain that our fall back option, our plan B was no longer available. Suddenly I was filled with a wild sensation; ofcourse plan B failed, we are not going to need it. We won’t be sold off, the Lehman brand will remain intact. I quickly fire off a PowerPoint on why I think that’s going to happen.
As I am heading out the door the phone rings again, it’s my boyfriend. He works at the IMF, has been as worried about the current crises as I. Hi sweetie, no everything is fine, yes I am in a good mood, I think everything is going to work out. Don’t know when I will be home. Bye, love ya too.
Fuld’s office, I break it to him. He looks at me with his trademark expression, you fucked it up, it says. At that moment he doesn’t even have the energy to rant. The rest of the top brass files in and worried distraught faces take on a look of wild desperation. I explain the reason for my optimism; everybody gets caught up in it. They had to believe, had to cling to whatever hope was in the air. We order pizza and beer.
Late night 9/11, I walk the short distance to my apartment looking around at the only city in the world I call home, look around with pride, after all it’s my ilk that created what it is today. I get home, boyfriend is asleep but wakes up to envelop me in his trademark warm cocoon of a hug. I feel happy and secure
Next day, meeting started at the Fed, buoyant mood in the Lehman office, and then the reports start trickling in. Paulson “No government bailouts would be offered to Wall Street.” He is hoping that a consortium of banks will step forward to save us from bankruptcy. Other whispers “Lehman not considered ‘too big’ to fail.” And then “its Paulson’s cronies over at Goldman, they are behind this” Finally, Paulson felt such a buyout "would create a terrible precedent."
"Which other firms would take that as a cue to ask for U.S. government help -- and from what other industries? Detroit auto makers were already knocking at the door." Timothy Geithner “Exhorting the other banks on the street to come forward” Nothing.
Over at the office a deathly calm. Nobody making eye contact, on the fourth floor traders counting down the time. Last minute lobbying, but we all knew it was fruitless.
A year later and questions are being asked. Naked short selling, rumor mongering, Fed caught flat footed. All terms being bandied about. For those of us who were at the death bed, seeing the giant collapse, it was the same feeling that we had when we saw the towers collapsing on that fateful morning. After all, the towers were America, supreme, absolute, inviolable! Just as the towers stood as a symbol of the free world, so did Lehman stand as the stone with which that world was paved? Free market forces that we lobbied for all over the world had finally been our waterloo. Had fate chosen this cruel allegory to make a point? What point?
Then, crouching in an alley holding a wet cloth to my face I had watched with a sense of disbelieving awe, bile rising in my throat, chest feeling as if it would burst out. Thinking, no way any of this is true; it’s just some weird time space discontinuity that will get corrected tomorrow. This time sitting high up in my fancy office with a view, I felt the same, stifled, yearning for tears and not finding any.
The telegram says you have gone away
And left our bankrupt circus on its own;
There is nothing more for me to say.
The maestro gives the singing birds their pay
And they buy tickets for the tropic zone;
The telegram says you have gone away.
The clever wooly dogs have had their day
They shoot the dice for one remaining bone;
There is nothing more for me to say.
The lion and the tigers turn to clay
And Jumbo sadly trumpets into stone;
The telegram says you have gone away.
The morbid cobra's wits have run astray;
He rents his poisons out by telegram;
There is nothing more for me to say.
The colored tents all topple in the bay;
The magic sawdust writes: address unknown.
The telegram says you have gone away;
There is nothing more for me to say.
-Slyvia Plath
