Final Final Essay

Submitted By 1365912535QqCom
Words: 4503
Pages: 19

The company our group has chosen is the Lehman Brothers Holdings. This company was the fourth largest Wall Street investment firm, which was forced to file for bankruptcy protection on September 2002. It was the largest investment bank to collapse since 1990, and based on assets, Lehman also far surpasses WorldCom as the largest U.S. bankruptcy ever. In order to analysis this company, we selected the mission statement of Lehman Brothers: “Our mission is to build unrivaled partnerships with and value for our clients, through the knowledge, creativity, and dedication of our people, leading to superior results for our shareholders...” Lehman Brothers’ mission statement lacks descriptions of its core business value and current market position. The major strategy that they promoted for themselves was in the 2008 Annual Report, Lehman boasted of having “a culture of risk management at every level of the firm.” That was written at the end of last year, when the global stock and credit markets had been in chaos for several months. The major forces affecting this company before it collapsed was the housing bubble and subprime mortgage crisis. The company’s management practices got contributed to its demise because there was a lack of core principles, ideology, and ethics. This company also completely disregarded their stakeholders, with the main factors that caused their collapse were wrong regulatory policies and destitute transparency. If Lehman Brothers successfully would have adopted an ideology regarding their stakeholders and business practices, they would have been able to make more sustainable business decisions and avoid the subprime mortgage crisis and potentially avoid bankruptcy.
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. was formerly considered one of the elite global financial services firms in the United States. The organization specialized in business relations in investment banking, equity and private equity, fixed-income sales, trading, along with investment management. In 1844, a man by the name of Henry Lehman established a small shop in Montgomery, Alabama that specialized in the retail of dry goods and groceries. Lehman Brothers was founded in 1850 when Emanuel and Mayer, Henry’s two brothers, helped solidify the business their brother had originated. It was not long before the Lehman Brothers evolved from a general merchandising business to a commodities brokerage firm that bought and sold cotton for planters all around the Montgomery area. After experiencing consistent profit, Lehman Brothers eventually developed into one of the most cutting-edge trading firms in the country. The continual success came in large part from a New York office opening, which allowed Lehman Brothers to truly get a foot in the door within the financial community.
Lucrative companies must possess a specific mission statement to help clarify where exactly the purpose and direction of where the organization is going to move. Lehman Brothers contained a mission statement taking pride in setting out “to build unrivaled partnerships with and value for our clients, through the knowledge, creativity, and dedication of our people, leading to superior results for our shareholders.” With continual innovations and advancing in research techniques, the firm was able to maintain optimal financial profit for an extended amount of time. Leading up to the demise of Lehman Brothers, the company became profoundly trapped in the subprime mortgage-lending catastrophe, which inevitably forced the long-time prosperous company to file for bankruptcy in 2008.
Lehman Brothers Holding was a part of the global financial services industry. Before the company had to file for bankruptcy in 2008 they were the fourth largest investment bank in the US. The competitors listed ahead of Lehman Brothers were, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch- all of which are still operating and leading the industry today. The financial services industry, which all of the listed