Lehman Brothers one of the oldest investment banks on Wall Street files for bankruptcy protection.
Lehman Brothers, one of the world's largest investment banks announces plans to file for bankruptcy protection. The bank has suffered billions of dollars worth of losses in the US mortgage markets and the ailing firm has failed to secure a rescue partner.
At the root of it all, the unfathomable mess of the subprime mortgage problem.
Some 25,000 people worldwide work for Lehman Brothers. In New York, its workforce faces an uncertain future. One stunned employee is unsure of what to do next,
Go home see the wife and kids and go from there.
The collapse of Lehman Brothers has sent shock waves around global financial markets. Stock markets in Europe and Asia fell sharply and shares in financial stocks were all sharply lower, with Anglo Irish Bank down as much as 13 per cent. On the New York Stock Exchange shares initially fell around 330 points before rallying. Traders are left trying to process what this means.
The market is also coming to terms with the takeover of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America. Along with Bear Stearns, three of Wall Street's big names have fallen in just 6 months,
This time no white knight came to the rescue.
The decision taken by the US Treasury not to rescue Lehman Brothers sends out the signal that Wall Street must sort out its own problems. This may,
Speed up the restructuring of an industry that's going through its bigger crisis since the Great Depression.
Lehman Brothers subsidiaries will continue trading, hoping to be bought out in the aftermath of the biggest casualty of the ongoing credit crisis
The Central Bank of Ireland says it is carefully monitoring the emerging developments on the global financial markets.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 15 September 2008. The reporter is Robert Shortt.
