Lehman Has Plan for Real Estate Loans

August 30 2008 - Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., trying to shore up its balance sheet, has settled on a structure that will allow it to offload billions of dollars in real-estate loans from its books.

The Wall Street firm run by Chief Executive Officer Richard Fuld is still hammering out the final details and it isn’t clear when a plan will be unveiled. One sticking point: finding financing in this cash-strapped environment for a spinoff or sale of these assets.

In addition to offloading the real-estate assets, Lehman is trying to sell its Neuberger Berman investment-management unit. Ideally, Lehman management would like to announce both transactions at the same time so it can assure investors that it has a bold plan to navigate its way out of the current credit crisis.

Lehman Has Plan for Real-Estate Loans
by SUSANNE CRAIG, MATTHEW KARNITSCHNIG and MICHAEL CORKERY