Barclays: Knights in shining armour?
Chapter number three.
A few summers ago, I needed to buy (actually it was probably more like 'wanted' to buy, but whatever) some new flip flops and happened across a lovely pair in Faith for £25. Pfft, said I; I ain't payin' no 25 big ones for some flimsy summer shoes. So I waited. And waited some more. They were reduced to £20, to £17.50 and to £14. I revisited the shop, tried them on and considered paying the price at the time, but always decided that it was still too much. Then, Faith clearly saw sense, and knocked the price down to £12. I reasoned with myself that was more than 50% off and, given that I was going on holiday in three days' time, forked over my cash. (These aren't the actual shoes I bought; the picture just made me laugh.)
On a much larger and less shoe-related scale, yesterday it was confirmed that Barclays are the me of the story, and Lehman are the flip flops. Or in other words, Barclays waited until Lehman were in serious trouble, had filed for bankruptcy and were dying a slow and painful death, before they said, "oh, actually, we do want to buy some of your assets after all."
And so, for the princely sum of $1.75 billion (£1 billion) Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of Barclays plc., have acquired Lehman Brothers' North American Investment Banking, and Fixed Income and Equities Sales, Trading and Research Operations. The Machiavellianist scamps have also included the New York office, its contents and around 10,000 employees in the purchase. Happy days. Or it will be when the bankruptcy court approves the sale.
Unfortunately for Pies and pals, both in Honkers and back in London, they are not among those 10k workers (I know, I know - the clue was there in the words 'north' and 'american') but if there is a glimmer of hope to be taken from this, it's that Barclays are still in discussions to potentially snap up other entities outside of the jolly old U S of A.
So what all that wiffle-waffle translates to is that we're playing the waiting game. And let me tell you kids, I'm not going to be recommending this one to MB Games to box up so it can be taken to dinner parties. It's lame - because everyone has a different opinion on what's going on; what's going to happen; why it all went wrong; whether or not it was worth joining a company that's now no more... so you just go round and round in circles, ending up with the same shrugging of the shoulders, pursing of the lips and tilting the head to one side.
On the plus side, it's looking increasingly hopeful that everyone will get paid by the end of September (PwC have told London that as long as they keep turning up, they'll get their money). No reason to stop looking elsewhere just yet, though!
picture source: http://flickr.com/photos/kramerdeluks/406670892/
