Questions Linger Over Lehman's Balance Sheet

[Joanne98]

Conde Naste is writing about Lehman's Debt Shuffle.


Investors were thrilled when Lehman topped earnings expectations on Tuesday—as the firm took pains to reassure the markets that it has plenty of cash to ride out the turbulence. Yet aside from a smattering of attention here and there, investors and the media mostly overlooked the balance sheet. In other words, they forgot what happened mere hours earlier with Bear Stearns. Wall Street’s short-term memory is notoriously lousy, but this must set a record.

What actually happened to Lehman’s balance sheet in the first quarter? Assets rose. Leverage rose. Write-downs were suspiciously minuscule. And the company fiddled with the way it defines a key measure of the firm’s net worth. Let’s look at the cautionary flags:

Lehman’s balance sheet isn’t shrinking.

Lehman finished the first quarter was total assets of $786 billion, up almost 14 percent from the previous quarter and 40 percent from a year earlier.

Lehman got more leveraged, not less.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/03/questions-linger-over-lehmans-balance.html

[SlowDownFast]

1. Got puts?

Mmmmm good.