Lehman Brothers Chronology and Documents
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Chronology of Selected Events Related to Lehman Brothers and the Possibility of Government Assistance Date Summary Description 03/17/08 The FRBNY loans $29 PDCF. FRBNY announces in a 3/16/08 press release that it has “been granted the authority to establish a Primary billion to Maiden Lane to Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF)” that “is intended to improve the ability of primary dealers to provide financing to facilitate JP Morgan’s participants in securitization markets and promote the orderly functioning of financial markets more generally.” acquisition of Bear Stearns, The PDCF provided “overnight funding to primary dealers in exchange for a specified range of collateral, including establishes the PDCF and all collateral eligible for tri‐party repurchase agreements arranged by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as well starts daily onsite as all investment‐grade corporate securities, municipal securities, mortgage‐backed securities and asset‐backed monitoring of the securities for which a price is available.” The FRBNY reported the PDCF would remain in operation for a minimum investment banks. period of six months and that it might be extended as conditions warrant to foster the functioning of financial markets. Lehman draws $1.6 billion from the PDCF on 3/18/08, $2.3 billion on 3/19/08, $2.3 billion on 3/20/08, $2.13 billion on 3/24/08, 3/25/08 and 3/26/08 and $2.0 billion on 4/16/08. It does not draw on the PDCF again until 9/15/08. Maiden Lane. FRBNY announces in 3/24/08 press release that it “will provide term financing to facilitate JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s acquisition of The Bear Stearns Companies Inc. … to bolster market liquidity and promote orderly market functioning.” The FRBNY reported that it would take, through a limited liability company formed for this purpose (Maiden Lane), control of a portfolio of assets valued at $30 billion as of March 14, 2008, that would be pledged as security for a $29 billion loan. On‐site Monitoring of Investment Banks. The FRBNY begins onsite monitoring of investment banks with a focus on liquidity. TAB 1 FRBNY Press Release, Federal Reserve Announces Establishment of Primary Dealer Credit Facility, March 16, 2008 http://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/news/markets/2008/rp080316.html FRBNY Press Release, Statement on Financing Arrangement of JPMorgan Chase's Acquisition of Bear Stearns, March 24, 2008 http://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/news/markets/2008/rp080324.html See, e.g., FRBNY, Lehman IB Update (Aug. 27, 2008) [FRBNY to Exam. 007968] (a representative FRBNY daily report analyzing Lehman’s liquidity pool, the status of Lehman’s secured and unsecured funding, intraday funding, stock price, clearing bank actions, and significant stories about Lehman circulating in the press). 3/18/08 Lehman reports better than Lehman reports better than expected 1Q08 results and the Firm’s stock price increases from $31.75 on 3/17/08 to expected 1Q08 results $46.49 on 3/18/08. TAB 2 Earnings release available at: http://www.lehman.com/press/qe/past/1_08qe.htm 4/15/08 Treasury official believes Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy Phillip Swagel writes that Lehman is securitizing loans and keeping them on Lehman is gaming the PDCF their books “to game the PDCF – they securitized their illiquid CLO’s and got a rating agency to say that some large fraction of it was investment grade. And then poof, they get access to tens of billions of dollars from the Fed’s PDCF.” TAB 3 UST‐FCIC 0030001 Page 1 of 15 Date Summary Description 4/16/08 Emails between David Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions David Nason emails Lehman Chief Legal Officer Tom Russo Nason and Tom Russo re and writes that “Secretary Paulson has asked me to visit with some of the large investment banking firms to get a regulation of investment sense of the firm’s current thinking on the types of regulation and supervision that might result from the Bear banks. situation. As you can expect, there is a lot of interest in this issue now and it is likely that the Congress will focus on this…” TAB 4 UST‐FCIC 0029516 ‐ UST‐FCIC 0029517 4/29/08 Emails between Mario Treasury’s Director of the Office of Financial Institutions Policy Mario Ugoletti emails Deputy Assistant Secretary for Ugoletti and Jeremiah Financial Institutions Policy Jeremiah Norton that he met separately with representatives from Goldman and Norton re PDCF, TSLF and Lehman’s Russo re the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (“PDCF”) and Term Securities Lending Facility (“TSLF”). regulation of investment Ugoletti writes that Russo supported “a framework that would provide discount window access to individual banks. institutions and on a market‐wide basis” and that it needed to be “implemented in a collaborative manner to avoid the stigma associated with discount window borrowing” including “anonymity and working together to solve problems.” TAB 5 UST‐FCIC 0029512 ‐ UST‐FCIC 0029514 6/09/08 Lehman pre‐announces Lehman’s first loss since going public. Stock declines from $33.02 on 6/6/08 to $29.24 on 6/9/08 due to higher‐ 2Q08 net loss of $2.8 than expected loss. billion. TAB 6 http://www.lehman.com/press/qe/past/2_08qe.htm 6/12/08 Lehman reports change in Lehman announces that Bart McDade will replace Joseph Gregory as President and COO, and that Ian Lowitt will management replace Erin Callan as CFO. 6/16/08 Kirsten Harlow onsite FRBNY onsite monitor Kirsten Harlow emails several FRBNY officials and reports that “Lehman’s earnings release monitoring report to today was largely in‐line with last week’s pre‐release. No adverse information on liquidity, novations, terminations FRBNY officials re or ability to fund either secured or unsecured balances has been reported.” Harlow also reports that Lehman has Lehman’s earnings release taken measures to strengthen liquidity and capital, including increasing liquidity pool from $34 billion to $45 billion, reducing assets, issuing $4 billion of preferred shares and $5.5 billion of long‐term debt. TAB 7 Email from Kirsten Harlow, FRBNY to Tim Geithner, et al. (June 16, 2008) [FCIC‐155446] 6/17/08 Email from William Dudley FRBNY Executive Vice President of the Markets group Bill Dudley emails Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, to Ben Bernanke, Tim FRBNY President & CEO Geithner and others that PDCF and TSLF should be extended to the end of the year. He Geithner and others re writes that the “PDCF remains critical to the stability of some of the IBs. Amounts don’t matter here, it is the fact that Lehman and PDCF. the PDCF underpins the triparty repo system. I think without the PDCF, Lehman might have experienced a full blown liquidity crisis. So this has to be kept as is until 1) the IBs are in better shape in terms of funding/leverage and 2) triparty is strengthened – both are in process.” TAB 8 6/17/08 email, FCIC 154463‐464. 6/19‐ Kirsten Harlow onsite Kirsten Harlow reports that with respect to Lehman, there are “trading issues with four financial institutions: Natixis 20/08 monitoring report to (eliminating all activity with Lehman), Santander, Wespac, and Commonwealth Bank of Australia.” Harlow also FRBNY officials re funding reports that Citi has “decided to reduce total clearing/settlement lines to Lehman from approximately $20 billion to counterparties. around $10‐12 billion” and that “Lehman has agreed to place $2 billion cash with Citi, not as collateral but in case of difficulties.” Also reported that JPMC reported that “some large pension funds and some smaller Asian central banks are specifying (or tightening the standards on) what classes of assets they will accept” and that certain investors are “still refusing to deal with these seemingly weak counterparties” even though JPMC agreed to indemnify them. Fed Senior Advisor in the Division of Banking Supervision and Regulation Tim Clark responds that “this is not sounding good at all.” TAB 9 6/20/08 email, FCIC155450 Page 2 of 15 Date Summary Description 6/25/08 Lehman fails FRBNY A FRBNY liquidity stress projects $66 billion of outflows and $51 billion of liquidity. It concludes that “(1) Lehman’s liquidity stress test. weak liquidity position was driven by its relatively large exposure to overnight CP combined with significant overnight secured funding of less liquid assets, (2) one and two notch downgrades would result in significant collateral calls, (3) Lehman recognized its vulnerabilities and was trying to reduce illiquid assets and extend maturities, and (4) Lehman should improve liquidity by $15 billion.” TAB 10 6/25/08 Primary Dealer Monitoring: Liquidity Stress Analysis, FCIC‐155470‐474, at 474. 7/10/08 Robert Hoyt email to Laurie Treasury General Counsel Robert Hoyt writes in email to Treasury Assistant General Counsel for Banking and Schaffer re Lehman Finance Laurie Schaffer that “the real problem is 70 billion of illiquid bonds, so I assume finding liquidity for them is Liquidity. the key.” TAB 11 UST‐FCIC 0029097 7/11/08 Treasury emails re options Robert Hoyt writes that “the Fed has plenty of legal authority to provide liquidity, and if they choose not to, I doubt to minimize effects of we would. So the real question may be what authorities can we exercise in a scenario where we want to let the firm Lehman failure. fail, but then step in to minimize effects on creditors and the system. Basically a receivership option. Consider this – could we negotiate a pre‐packaged bankruptcy where we provide funding, operate the business, and take care of creditors?” TAB 12 7/11/08 email, UST‐FCIC 0029096.