IT SOUNDS distinctly unpromising. A nine-volume, 2,200-page report by a court-appointed examiner into the causes of Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy, published on Thursday March 11th, has a table of contents that lasts for 38 pages. Its most exciting finding relates to an off-balance-sheet accounting gimmick. But the work of Anton Valukas, the chairman of Jenner & Block, a law firm, is crisp, clear and explosive.
Mr Valukas and his team took more than a year to research their report. They collected more than 5m documents and reviewed an estimated 34m pages of information. Looking at Lehman’s IT systems was a particular challenge. The firm had a rat’s nest of more than 2,600 systems and applications at the time it went bust; Mr Valukas boiled that down to the 96 most relevant ones, some of which are now operated by Barclays (the buyer of Lehman’s American arm after the holding company failed). He also conducted more than 250 informal interviews, many of them with Lehman’s directors and most senior executives.
via A postmortem on Lehman Brothers: Oh, brother | The Economist.
