Lehman Brothers: Reasons of Failure: (2007-2008) Ceos
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LEHMAN BROTHERS: Lehman was a global financial services firm. Lehman Brothers started in 1844 as a small grocery and dry goods store established by Henry Lehman. Later on they traded cotton, moved to New York and established New York Cotton Exchange. After this events Lehman continued on the road of success and before declaring bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth largest investment bank in the USA with 26000 employees, doing business in investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales and trading (especially U.S. Treasury securities), market research, investment management, private equity, and private banking. On September 15, 2008, the firm filed for bankruptcy protection following the massive exodus of most of its clients, drastic losses in its stock, and devaluation of its assets by credit rating agencies. The filing marked the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, which is a major cause of crisis. REASONS OF FAILURE: (2007-2008) There were many reasons behind the collapse of Lahman brothers but the main cause was technical issues and corporate governance failures. Lehman Brothers had very weak corporate governance arrangements. The main areas of weakness were board of directors, corporate risk management, remuneration scheme and nomination committees. As the crisis started in August 2007 with the failure of two funds Lehman’s stock fell sharply. During that month company eliminated 2,500 jobs and shut down its BNC unit. It also closed offices in three states. Lehman’s collapse was a seminal event that greatly intensified the 2008 crisis and contributed to the erosion of close to ten trillion in market capitalization from global equity markets in October 2008, the biggest monthly decline on record at the time. CEOS: Peter A. Cohen (CEO Lehman in 1983) Mr. Peter A. Cohen is Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer of Cowen Group, Inc. Mr. Cohen serves as Chairman of the Company's Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of Cowen Group. After receiving his Bachelor of Science degree from Ohio State University in 1968, Mr. Cohen earned his M.B.A. from Columbia University in 1969 and began a career on Wall Street at Reynolds & Co. In 1970, he joined the firm which became Shearson Lehman Brothers. In 1973, Mr. Cohen became Assistant to the Chairman of the firm, Sanford Weill, and was involved in all aspects of the firm's activities. In 1978, Mr. Cohen left Shearson for one year to work directly for Edmond Safra at Republic NY Corporation and Trade Development Bank Holdings in Geneva, Switzerland and returned to Shearson in 1979. Shearson merged with American Express in 1981 at which time he became President & Chief Operating Officer and in 1983 Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, a position he held until 1990. In 1991, Mr. Cohen formed Republic New York Securities and Republic Asset Management for Republic National Bank of New York and at the same time commenced the activities around which Ramius was formed in 1994. Mr. Cohen was Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Shearson Lehman Brothers from 1983 to 1990. Over his career, Mr. Cohen has served on a number of corporate, industry and philanthropic boards. Harvey Golub (CEO Lehman in 1993) Harvey Golub is an American businessman. He received a Bachelor of Science from the New York University. He worked as a Senior Partner with McKinsey & Company. From 1993 to 2001, he was Chief Executive Officer of American Express. He served as Chairman of the Board at the Campbell Soup Company from November 2004 to July 2009. He served as Chairman of the American International Group (AIG). His resignation as AIG Chairman was announced on July 16, 2010.He currently serves as the Chairman of Miller Buckfire. Richard Fuld (CEO Lehman 2008) Richard fuld is an American banker best known as the final Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lehman Brothers. Fuld had held this position since the firm's 1994 spinoff from American Express until 2008.He received both a B.A. and B.S. from the University of Colorado Boulder in 1969 and his M.B.A. from New York University's Stern School of Business. He then began his career with Lehman Brothers in 1969, the year the firm's senior partner Robert Lehman died, and stayed at the company until its bankruptcy. Fuld worked for Lehman for nearly 40 years. During this time, Fuld witnessed and participated in the numerous changes within the organization, including its merger with Kuhn, Loeb & Co, its acquisition by American Express, its merger with E.F. Hutton, and its ultimate spin-off from American Express in 1994, once again as Lehman Brothers. Lehman Brothers is considered to be an example of a company that failed during the financial crisis of 2008 in large part due to ineffective oversight by the board of directors. The board did not sufficiently monitor the decisions of senior management or understand the risks that the company was exposed to as a result of those decisions. Fuld, his management team and Lehman’s Board of Directors failed Lehman’s shareholders (the real owners of the company) and destroyed one of the best names in global finance. Richard Fuld was aggressive, confrontation, and blunt leader. He was a difficult executive to monitor. As many successful CEOs, he also kept a lifestyle that isolated him from the real world and receiving all his information through a small number of people. He was not able to find a solution for Lehman, as he overvalued the company and failed to realize the severity of the situation facing Lehman. Fuld overvalued the company because he had worked there for too long, was not up to date with developments of modern finance. Under his leadership, Lehman continued to not only carry out the traditional tasks of an investment bank, but also to push deeply into the new financial markets that were emerging at the time. For one thing, it early on became a leader in the subprime securitization market. Till Fuld was pushed to the side in June 2008, he ran Lehman in an authoritarian manner, creating the very aggressive and competitive type of corporate culture that seems to be characteristic of modern investment banks. Fuld’s personal experience was as a bond trader and that he had little understanding of such new financial instruments such as collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps etc, so Fuld makes some of his clumsy attempts to deal with the crisis. The story of Lehman Brothers’ demise is unfortunate, and the real tragedy lies in the lack of ethical behavior of its executives and professional advisors. They need to have a mile-high view of the business climate and potential risks to the company. They would take steps to protect the company from emerging threats, if all business leaders subscribed to being accountable and responsible for their actions we wouldn't have a Lehman Brothers type of an event. American International Group, Inc. Also known as AIG – is an American multinational insurance corporation with more than 88 million customers in 130 countries. AIG companies employ over 64,000 people in 90 countries. The company operates through three businesses: AIG Property Casualty, AIG Life and Retirement and United Guaranty Corporation (UGC). AIG Property Casualty provides insurance products for commercial, institutional and individual customers. AIG Life and Retirement provides life insurance and retirement services in the United States. UGC focuses on mortgage guaranty insurance and mortgage insurance. AIG also focuses on global capital markets operations, direct investment and retained interests. AIG’s corporate headquarters are in New York City, its British headquarters are in London, continental Europe operations are based in La Defense, Paris, and its Asian headquarters are in Hong Kong. The company serves 98% of the Fortune 500 companies, 96% of Fortune 1000, and 90% of Fortune Global 500, and insures 40% of Forbes 400 Richest Americans. AIG was ranked 40th largest company in the 2014 Fortune 500 list. According to the 2014 Forbes Global 2000 list, AIG is the 42nd-largest public company in the world. On March 31, 2015 AIG had a market capitalization of $75.04 billion Accounting Scandal. In 2005, AIG became embroiled in a series of fraud investigations conducted by the Securities and Exchange Commission, U.S. Justice Department, and New York State Attorney General's Office. Greenberg was ousted amid an accounting scandal in February 2005. The New York Attorney General's investigation led to a $1.6 billion fine for AIG and criminal charges for some of its executives On May 1, 2005, investigations conducted by outside counsel at the request of AIG's Audit Committee and the consultation with AIG's independent auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP resulted in AIG's decision to restate its financial statements for the years ended December 31, 2003, 2002, 2001 and 2000, the quarters ended March 31, June 30 and September 30, 2004 and 2003 and the quarter ended December 31, 2003. On November 9, 2005, the company was said to have delayed its third-quarter earnings report because it had to restate earlier financial results, to correct accounting errors. Martin J. Sullivan became CEO of the company. He began his career at AIG as a clerk in its London office in 1970. AIG then took on tens of billions of dollars of risk associated with mortgages. It insured tens of billions of dollars of derivatives against default, but did not purchase reinsurance to hedge that risk. Secondly, it used collateral on deposit to buy mortgage- backed securities. When losses hit the mortgage market in 2007-2008, AIG had to pay out insurance claims and also replace the losses in its collateral accounts AIG purchased the remaining 39% that it did not own of online auto insurance specialist 21st Century Insurance in 2007 for $749 million.