nice work if you can get it

Fury at Lehman bonus

Here is an bit of financial news from the UK that might have been overlooked...

Fury at Lehman $2.5 billion bonus

When Lehman went bankrupt, the company had a market value of about $3 billion.
In a move foreshadowing subsequent events, the company had paid half the year end bonus to staff at the end of June.

Hours before the collapse of the firm, Lehman transferred $8 billion from its UK subsidiary to the US, leaving no money even for salaries owed to UK staff.
The administrator of the European operations group would like that money back, although there may not be much left by the time the lawyers are through.

But, Barclays, a UK bank, bought Lehman's American operations - the actual investment piece of the corporation, for a modest $1.75 billion - getting the trading staff and their rolodexes, but not the garbage investments, mostly.

However, they guaranteed $2.5 billion in bonuses, this year, to "key" senior staff in the process of getting the transaction approved. More than they paid shareholders, almost as much as the capital valuation of the entire company the day before.

Nice work, if you can get it.
Specially given the recent record of the company's senior staff.