 |  | 
 
This is an authentic stock certificate from
Lehman Brother's One William Street Fund.
Historic vignette of the Lehman Brothers office front (on
1 William St). Issued and cancelled in the early 1960s.
This is a rare opportunity to get a real stock certificate as a memento of the
company. This is a very hard to find piece!
Lehman Brothers Holdings
Inc. founded in 1850, is a diversified, global financial services firm. It is
a participant in investment banking, equity and fixed income sales, research
and trading, investment management, private equity, and private banking. It is
a primary dealer in the U.S. Treasury securities market. Its primary
subsidiaries include: Lehman Brothers Inc., Neuberger Berman Inc., Aurora Loan
Services, Inc., SIB Mortgage Corporation, Lehman Brothers Bank, FSB, and the
Crossroads Group. The firm's worldwide headquarters are in New York City, with
regional headquarters in London, and Tokyo and offices throughout the world.
Historical info:
In 1844, 23-year-old Henry Lehman, the
son of a cattle merchant, emigrated to the United States from the town of
Rimpar, in the German state of Bavaria. He settled in Montgomery, Alabama, where
he opened a dry goods store, "H. Lehman". In 1847, following the
arrival of Emanuel, the Firm became "H. Lehman and Bro." Finally, with
the arrival of their youngest brother, Mayer, in 1850, the Firm changed its name
again and "Lehman Brothers" was founded.
| In the 1850s Southern United
States, cotton was one of the most important crops (if not the most
important crop) in the country, the era recalled by the phrase
"cotton was king." Capitalizing on cotton's high market value,
the three brothers began to routinely accept raw cotton from customers as
payment for merchandise. As a natural outgrowth of this business, the
brothers began a successful second business, trading in cotton. Within a
few years this business grew to become the most significant part of their
operation. Following Henry's untimely death from yellow fever in 1855, the
remaining brothers continued to focus on their commodities trading and
brokerage operations.
By 1858, as the brothers witnessed the shift
in cotton's center from the South to New York City, where factors and commission
houses were based, Lehman Brothers opened its first branch office there, at 119
Liberty Street. Thirty-two year old Emanuel relocated to New York to run the
office. In 1862, facing difficulties as a result of the Civil War, the firm
teamed up with a cotton merchant named John Durr to form Lehman, Durr & Co.
Following the war the company helped finance Alabama's reconstruction. The
firm's headquarters were eventually moved to New York City, where they helped
found the New York Cotton Exchange in 1870; Emanuel would sit on the Board of
Governors until 1884. The Firm also dealt in the emerging market for railroad
bonds, and entered the financial advisory business.
|
Emanuel and Mayer Lehman |
Lehman Brothers became members of the Coffee
Exchange as early as 1883 and finally the New York Stock Exchange in 1887. The
firm also began to develop international interests in Europe and Japan, as well
as expertise in merchant banking. In 1899 they underwrote their first public
offering, the preferred and common stock of the International Steam Pump
Company.
Despite the 1899 offering of International
Steam, the Firm's real shift from being a commodities house to a house of issue
did not begin until 1906. The Firm was among the first to recognize the
potential of issuing stock as a way for companies to raise capital, in contrast
to the issuance of debt, which had historically been the method. In that year,
under Philip Lehman, the Firm partnered with Goldman, Sachs & Co., to bring
the General Cigar Co. to market, followed closely by Sears, Roebuck and Company.
During the following two decades, almost one hundred new issues were
underwritten by Lehman Brothers, many times in conjunction with Goldman, Sachs.
Among these were F.W. Woolworth Company, May Department Stores Company, Gimbel
Brothers, Inc., R.H. Macy & Company, The Studebaker Corporation, The B.F.
Goodrich Co. and Endicott Johnson Corporation
| Following Philip Lehman's
retirement in 1925, his son Robert "Bobbie" Lehman took over as
head of the firm. During Bobbie's tenure, Lehman Brothers' rise to
pre-eminence among New York investment firms began. The company weathered
the capital crisis of the Great Depression by focusing on helping private
funders and companies connect, while the equities market recovered. This
was the foundation of today's venture capital industry. By 1928, the Firm
had outgrown its premises in the Farmers Loan & Trust Building and
moved to its now famous One William Street
location. In that same year, Herbert Lehman, left the Firm to enter public
service, first as a U.S. Senator and later, as governor of New York State.
In 1929, the Firm created the Lehman Corporation, an investment company,
wholly separate from Lehman Brothers, but with many common officers and
directors. Years later, the Firm would characterize its first foray into
asset management, via the Lehman Corporation, as "the most important
single chapter in its history".
Under Peterson's leadership as Chairman and
CEO, the Firm acquired Abraham & Co. in 1975, and two years later merged
with the venerable, but struggling, Kuhn, Loeb & Co., to form Lehman
Brothers, Kuhn, Loeb Inc. Peterson led the Firm from significant operating
losses to five consecutive years of record profits with a return on equity among
the highest in the investment banking industry.
|
Herbert H. Lehman |
| Hostilities between the
Firm's investment bankers and traders (who were driving most of the Firm's
profits) was becoming palpable. In 1983, Peterson promoted Lewis
Glucksman, the President, COO, to be his co-CEO. Glucksman introduced
changes in personnel, and in the determination of bonuses and partnership
interests. These measures had the effect of increasing tensions, which
when coupled with Glucksman’s management style and a downturn in the
markets, created a bitter struggle for power in which Glucksman prevailed
and Peterson was ousted, leaving Glucksman as the sole CEO.
Upset bankers, who had soured over the
power struggle, left the company. Steve Schwarzman, chairman of the firm's
M&A committee, recalled in a February 2003 interview with Private
Equity International that "Lehman Brothers had an extremely
competitive internal environment, which ultimately became
dysfunctional." The company suffered under the disintegration, and
Glucksman was pressured into selling the Firm to Shearson, an American
Express backed electronic transaction company, in 1984, for $360 million.
On May 11, the combined firms became Shearson Lehman/American Express. In
1988, Shearson Lehman/American Express and E.F. Hutton & Co. merged as
Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc. |
 |
In 1993, under newly appointed CEO, Harvey
Golub, American Express began to divest itself of its banking and brokerage
operations. It sold its retail brokerage and asset management operations to
Primerica and in 1994 it spun off Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb in an initial public
offering, as Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc's.
common stock commenced trading on the New York & Pacific stock exchanges,
under the ticker symbol "LEH".
In late August 2007, Lehman
Brothers closed its subprime lender, BNC Mortgage. The New York investment bank
cut 1,200 positions in 23 locations as a result of the closing of BNC Mortgage.
It took an after-tax charge of $25 million and a goodwill writedown of $27
million. Lehman said that poor market conditions in the mortgage space
"necessitated a substantial reduction in its resources and capacity in the
subprime space". Lehman said it continues to originate mortgages through
Aurora's platform. Aurora Loan Services of Littleton, Colo., specializes in
Alt-A mortgages.
|
|
