With the participation of major Wall Street hedge funds, JPMorgan Chase and Citibank.

Soon, institutions in the market continued to join the battle of "naked short selling" of Lehman Brothers' shares.

At the same time, some unknown third-rate tabloids and media also spread various "breaking news, expert stock reviews, etc." in the market that cannot be verified.

Almost all of it was bad news about Lehman Brothers.

The main purpose of this behavior is to completely defeat Lehman Brothers, leaving it without any hope of a comeback.

Fuld, who was holding an emergency meeting, and members of Lehman's board of directors also received the heavy news immediately.

Faced with the shameless short selling behavior led by Goldman Sachs, the board of directors now has no choice but to curse a few times.

Because the grudge between them and Goldman Sachs has long gone beyond a day or two.

In 1996, Paulson was appointed president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs Group.

At that time, he advocated placing heavy bets on Internet companies that were booming, and gained a lot of investment income, leading Goldman Sachs Group to become the second largest investment bank on Wall Street (the first was Merrill Lynch).

Later, the American Internet bubble burst, and Goldman Sachs Group entered multiple crises.

In 1999, Paulson officially became chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs Group.

Although Goldman Sachs was "seriously injured" at this time, it was not life-threatening. Therefore, it was not difficult for Paulson to clean up the mess.

But at this time, Lehman Brothers saw the hope of killing Goldman Sachs and changing from fourth to third. They also saw a good opportunity to make a fortune.

As a result, it urgently mobilized a huge amount of funds and began to short Goldman Sachs. At the same time, it also sent people to lobby the Federal Reserve to stop them from bailing out Goldman Sachs.

Amid Lehman's indiscriminate bombardment, Goldman Sachs' life hung on a thread.

Fortunately, Paulson still has several important friends in the circle, such as the big hedge fund boss Aikman, JPMorgan Chase President Jamie Dimon, etc. These people are willing to invest to help Goldman Sachs recover.

But Lehman, which was so jealous, could not give up. It directly chose to short all the investors who helped Goldman Sachs.

After this battle, Lehman became the world's third largest investment bank as it wished, while Goldman Sachs fell to fourth.

However, after 2000, Paulson relied on his outstanding performance in the mergers and acquisitions business to make Goldman Sachs the number one brother in the Wall Street investment banking industry in just over a year.

Things are changing now.

Lehman Brothers was in crisis, but Paulson became the federal Treasury secretary, and Jamie Dimon became the most powerful director of the New York branch of the Federal Reserve.

Therefore, it is no wonder why so many institutions want to take advantage of Lehman and add insult to injury.

"Fulder, we must now find a way to regain investor confidence, otherwise we will soon become the second Bear Stearns."

A nearly eighty-year-old Lehman director said worriedly.

By the time they met, Lehman's stock price had experienced three major plunges, from a high of sixty dollars per share to less than eight dollars now.

The market value is only $6 billion.

It plummeted 90 percent.

If the stock price cannot be stabilized, more and more investors will redeem their funds, eventually causing Lehman's capital chain to break and unable to operate normally.

To be honest, he has been retired for more than 20 years and has no longer participated in the company's daily operations, but now at this critical juncture, he has to step forward.

Otherwise, the Lehman moment will come soon.

"Sanders, how many mortgage-related securities do we have left now?" Fuld took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.

Although the outside world is full of bad news for Lehman, as CEO, he must not mess up the situation at this time, otherwise Lehman will really have no hope.

"BOSS, after Bear Stearns declared bankruptcy, we immediately began to clean up the subordinated bonds on the company's books as quickly as possible. However, due to the sharp increase in the default rate of subprime mortgage loans, the credit rating of the subordinated debts has deteriorated.

The market value has plummeted, and we still have about $50 billion of subprime debt on hand that we haven't had time to sell off."

General Manager Sanders bravely reported a set of data.

Hiss~

The company executives in the conference room couldn't help but shudder.

The elderly board members had expressions of astonishment on their faces.

They never imagined that Lehman's current leverage had reached such a high level!

As industry insiders, they know very well that the asset composition of investment banks cannot only consist of subordinated debt. If you also include commercial debt, counterparty debt, central bank borrowings, asset-backed securities, etc.

A series of liquidations came down.

Doesn’t that mean that Lehman’s current liabilities are likely to reach hundreds of billions of dollars?

"The real situation may be even worse than this. The value of the subordinated debt we hold has plummeted. Even if we finally sell it completely, I am afraid we will only recover one-tenth..."

Sanders covered his face with a painful expression and said no more.

The subtext of his words is that I can no longer find a buyer, and this carrot is already rotten in my hands.

Faced with such a huge mess, the board once again pointed the finger at CEO Fuld.

"Gentlemen, in fact we don't need to be so pessimistic. After the bankruptcy of Bear Stearns, the Federal Reserve stated more than once that it would open the discount window and provide short-term liquidity services to commercial banks. What does this mean?"

"It means the government doesn't want to see us collapse, otherwise the subprime debt in our hands will have a huge impact on the housing market."

"So, I believe that the government will definitely take action to stabilize the market, and even directly inject large sums of money into us. By then, our current situation will be reversed."

"On the other hand, we can't be idle. We still have many assets that can be sold, which can give us higher liquidity and allow us to weather this crisis more smoothly."

Fuld, who was 62 years old at the time, was still so confident and calmed everyone's emotions with only a few words.

After graduating from college at the age of 22, he joined Lehman and went from trader to CEO. He is the longest-serving CEO among major Wall Street investment banks.

Not only did it experience the independent listing of Lehman in 1994, it also led the company through multiple crises such as the cash flow crisis in 1998 and the Internet bubble in 2000.

He was the founder of Lehman's glory, and it was his pride that created Lehman's many rebirths.

Therefore, the board of directors cannot say anything more and can only pray that this time it will be as safe as before.

Otherwise, they will have no choice but to go bankrupt.

After the meeting, Fuld faced reporters and confidently announced that the worst period of the subprime mortgage crisis was over.

Moreover, he also said that he is willing to bet with investors to see whether the Federal Reserve can stabilize the market.

He firmly believes that the Fed will win in the end.

However, what he didn't know was that the Fed at this time was actually just bluffing.

They are not ready for large-scale discounts yet. They said this deliberately to gain market confidence.

However, Fuld's performance still had an effect. Lehman recovered from a 57% plunge and closed down 14%, giving him some breathing space.

But it was just a breather.
Chapter completed!