But Fuld doesn't think so, and he is still running around, making a final effort for the continuation of the century-old Lehman.

2008, 14 July, morning.

In one of the offices of the headquarters of the Lehman Building, one of the five major investment banks on Wall Street, a phone suddenly rang, disturbing a man and a woman who were eye-to-eye.

The man was Sanders, the company's executive manager, and the woman was his secretary.

After answering the phone, Sanders's face turned pale instantly, and he only heard the other end of the phone say: "Sanders, the Treasury Department does not support our split plan, but I have just persuaded Fed Chairman Bernanke that he will come forward to solve the Lehman capital injection problem, which is our last hope."

After hanging up the phone, Sanders hurriedly instructed the female secretary to book a banquet hall for tonight at the Four Seasons Hotel in Lower Manhattan, New York.

It is one of the most luxurious hotels in all of New York.

At eight o'clock in the evening, Sanders and a man in the same suit and leather shoes greeted the guests at the entrance of the brightly lit hotel, smiling at the guests, but their smiles were a little unnatural, even reluctant.

That's the guy who called Sanders this morning, and Sanders' big boss, Richard Fulder.

And the two of them greeted the big names who could influence Wall Street: Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, UBS. The heads of the major investment banks, plus Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

After the reception began, the hall gradually resounded with the noise of bargaining and slaughtering pigs and cattle, just like the scene when the New York Stock Exchange opened.

"As long as you contribute money, you can talk about anything."

"Afraid of default? The first 5 billion will be repaid by Lehman if there is any problem."

"Do you think it's expensive? Well, let's make a 20% concession."

Sanders couldn't help but feel extremely ashamed when he saw that the big boss, who used to be arrogant and conceited and called "Wall Street Bulldog" by the company and his peers, had reached the miserable appearance of wagging his tail and begging for mercy.

"Either the government endorses us, or the Fed injects money," Big Boss Fuld said pleadingly to Treasury Secretary Paulson.

"Sorry, I said we couldn't bail out the bankers with taxpayer money!"

Treasury Secretary Paulson shook his head and rightly rejected all of his requests.

This was undoubtedly a resounding slap in the face to the big boss Fulder, but then, Paulson pointed to the giants of Wall Street's major investment banks and added: "But they can!" ”

Everyone present smiled tacitly, but soon fell silent again, as if waiting for something.

It was already past one o'clock in the morning, and the hall was filled with smoke.

At the same time, the Lehman building was also brightly lit.

A team of people had already begun to work, and the asset accounting team, appointed by the Federal Reserve and Treasury Secretary Paulson, was accounting for the losses in Lehman's accounts.

During this time, accountants and lawyers kept coming up to him and asking him questions about the state of his assets, which made him sit on pins and needles, and when he had asked the last question, he was asked to recuse himself.

"These more than $30 billion in assets are actually worth only 45% of the book amount, or even less!" An accountant held up several data reports that had just been faxed by the accounting team and reported to the crowd.

So, the conference hall began to boil again.

But this was followed by a steady stream of people leaving the chamber.

This scene made Fuld desperate.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke walked over, patted him lightly on the shoulder, sighed and said, "Richard, don't blame me, the Fed's previous stealth bailout agreement on financial institutions has inspired moral hazard. Therefore, we unanimously decided to choose a reckless institution with enough influence to deter the market, and voluntarily abandon all potential promises to it, and let it go out of business completely, so as to warn all market participants to stop having illusions. ”

"It's not your fault, and we don't want to, Lehman was just chosen at the wrong time."

Bernanke's words are tantamount to issuing a death notice to Lehman Brothers, who only has one breath left.

At the same time, he is also telling Fuld that Lehman's death is inevitable because they are already the "chicken" used to kill chickens and make an example of monkeys in the context of the "subprime mortgage crisis".

It's a bit brutal, but so what?

Capital markets will not show mercy to losers.

If you want to blame it, blame it on your bad luck and hit the muzzle of the gun!

What's more, before the government saved Bear Stearns and gave the two houses to the bottom of the house, the public was already full of anger at their operation to take taxpayers' money and save the bankers.

Judging from the current situation, Lehman Brothers will definitely not be the last financial institution to need a bailout, and if they do it again, it is very likely that the United States will also "pull" its finances into the water.

And once the formation of "anyway, there is the government to support the bottom, the benefits belong to me, and the risks belong to everyone." "The consequences of this kind of thinking that is too big to fail will be unimaginable.

After the meeting, Sanders, the executive manager of Lehman, walked down the road in despair, with the smell of various cigars on his body and the feeling of confusion in the face of the prospect, not knowing where to go.

Suddenly, the big boss called again: "Sanders, we have been saved!" Bank of America is willing to buy us in the form of partial loan plus equity! ”

Seeing hope, Sanders ran back desperately, as if the more he ran, the more hopeful he became, but what about .

After seven hours of negotiation with Bank of America, Fuld represented Lehman and the Bank of America, and the legal teams of both parties finally drafted the acquisition agreement.

Fuld almost roared on the spot, and asked several whys in a row?

However, the other party only shrugged his shoulders, saying that due to too much pressure on cooperation, they could only choose Merrill Lynch, which was in slightly better asset condition

When Sanders returned to the company, he learned the bad news as soon as he could.

He rushed into the CEO's office and saw the big boss slumped on the sofa, disheveled, and looked stupid, so he poured him a cup of coffee and said, "Boss, those bastards are just playing with us, not really trying to save Lehman at all!" ”

"They want us to go bankrupt and divide up all the assets we have left!"

"Especially Paulson's bichi, I feel sick to the high face!"

Sanders scolded and scolded, venting the resentment he had received during this time, without the demeanor of an investment bank general manager, perhaps at this time, he didn't care about who he would offend.

God, Lehman is bankrupt, and he's about to lose his job, so there's nothing to be afraid of.

Fuld slumped on the couch and didn't join Sanders in scolding Wall Street, but slowly closed his eyes, as if he had completely despaired in his heart.

Once upon a time, the extremely arrogant and conceited CEO had to bow his head and admit that he had made a major strategic mistake, and it was he who single-handedly pushed the century-old Lehman into an irretrievable abyss.

"BOSS, YOU KNOW WHAT? Just now, there is a fund company in Texas that bought hundreds of millions of our bullish options in one go, and I have to say, their fund manager is really a talent, is the news on their side so lagging behind, don't you know that we are about to go out of business? ”

Sanders scolded a little tired, picked up the cup of coffee that was originally brewed for Fuld, took a few sips, smacked his lips and said casually.

"What do you say? Say it again! ”

Fulder's eyes widened suddenly, and he jumped up from the couch and grabbed Sanders by the collar and asked.

"I said. There's a fund company that just bought hundreds of millions of of our call options, BOSS, what's wrong with you." Sanders was taken aback by his sudden move.

"Have you checked what that fund company is called? What is their background? Fuld asked a little hurriedly.

Judging from his intuition in the financial industry for many years, it is unlikely that this kind of counterintuitive operation will occur in the capital market, even if the other fund manager's brain is really not very good, but there is no sober person in the entire fund company?

You must know that such an investment method that is close to gambling cannot pass the review of the company's risk control department at all.

Since Lehman failed to sell assets again and again, not only the major financial institutions on Wall Street have taken the lead in shorting their stocks, but even investors have completely lost confidence in them, and a large number of sell-offs have followed.

Lehman's stock price has been suppressed to the point of only $1 a share, which can be described as painful.

If they file for bankruptcy protection in the Federal Court of New York at this time, I am afraid that the company's stock price will collapse in an instant and become an out-and-out penny stock, and all shareholders will lose their money.

Is there anyone who doesn't know this?

"BOSS, I checked at the time, it is a small fund company that has only been established for about eight years, and they have less than 20 employees, and their past performance is very ordinary, only slightly outperforming the S&P 500 index, so there should be no special background."

When Sanders saw his nervous look, he immediately told him all the information he knew.

"It's no wonder that if they are just a small fund company, they really don't pay so much attention to it, and many times, the risk control department of a small company is nothing but a virtual reality, and the final strategy customization and operation are still the responsibility of the fund manager." It dawned on Fuld and instantly found a very reasonable explanation.

However, his intuition told him that the sources of information in the capital market are very complex, and there can be no "changes" for no reason.

Behind any abnormal operation, there may be some kind of hidden message.

So, to be on the safe side, he immediately asked Sanders to conduct a comprehensive inventory of Lehman's asset management department to see if he could find some clues.

That's Lehman's most valuable cash flow department.

It mainly includes proprietary trading of their stock trading, directional asset management, collective asset management, market value management and other businesses.

Sanders spent most of the day checking all the trading accounts of the entire asset management department, including the hidden accounts on the periphery.

It doesn't matter if it's checked, the end result makes them ecstatic!

Several of these accounts, which hold a 1.2% stake in an Asian-listed company, have been climbing the yield curve for seven years and are now about twenty-fold more valuable! Reached a staggering $2.5 billion!

This means that if all these shares are cashed out, this cash will give the company at least half a year of buffer time!

There is an old saying that is called "no pole Tailai".

This sentence could not be more appropriate for Lehman now.

End of July, 2008.

Lehman, which is one step away from bankruptcy, suddenly announced that it will sell about $2.5 billion worth of shares in the company's proprietary business in "Infinity" through a transfer of agreement or a tender offer to ease the company's current debt pressure.

The good news immediately stimulated the stock market, and Lehman's stock price rose in response.

What makes Lehman executives even happier is that this equity transaction is even smoother than expected!

In order to maximize returns, they certainly prefer to trade privately by agreement rather than directly selling shares in the secondary market and causing stock price fluctuations.

As soon as Fuld released the news in the market, Chase Manhattan Bank sent a bank president and expressed his willingness to buy the 1.2% stake in Infinity held by Lehman at a premium of 10%.

However, just as Fuld was about to sign the transfer agreement.

An institution from Huaxia called "Industrial and Commercial Bank of China" suddenly came to the door and offered to buy their shares for $3 billion.

The momentum of making a generous move and never bargaining made Fuld feel flattered.

But what happened immediately afterwards made his jaw drop even more.

In just three days, dozens of internationally renowned institutions contacted them and expressed their intention to acquire them.

It even includes Sumitomo Mitsui Bank, the island nation that rejected him before, Nomura Securities, and some sovereign funds of European countries, and so on, and they offer higher prices than the other.

This had to make Fuld and other Lehman executives wonder if these agencies were colluding in private and partnering to deceive them!