| Kippreport.com

Business of… the world’s biggest bankruptcies

January 5, 2011 2:24 by shafeer

If you want to pinpoint the moment we were plunged an abyss of global financial doom you won’t find anything quite like the day when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2008. The fourth largest investment bank had suffered gravely from its billon dollar losses in the US mortgage market; the Guardian says that during the 18 months before the collapse the bank had lost $14 billion after being forced to take write-downs on the value of their property-related investments.

The bank, which was founded in 1850 by three brothers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection—under which they were allowed time to devise a plan to repay creditors. The shock value of the Lehman brothers’ collapse was compounded by the news that the Bank of America had agreed to buy investment bank Merrill Lynch for $50 billion just 24 hours after the announcement of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.

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