Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Lehman Brothers Holding Inc.'s London employees will be paid by the end of the month on condition they go on reporting for duty at the firm's Canary Wharf headquarters.

Employees will be paid by Sept. 30, said Tony Lomas, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, which was named Lehman's administrator after the U.S. parent filed for bankruptcy this week. The administrators negotiated a loan to help pay the 4,500 employees in London, he said in an Internet presentation today.

Lehman is in talks with potential buyers for the European investment banking unit after its U.S. parent filed for bankruptcy protection Sept. 15. The administrators said today other workers may be kept on to wind down the operation, a process the accounting firm said could take as long as six years. Lehman has about 6,000 employees in Europe.

The loan ``has enabled us to give an undertaking to staff,'' Lomas said. ``A lot of work has been done since Monday morning to progress some of these issues in an effort to take control of the company's affairs and focus on some recovery plans for the assets.''

He told reporters Sept. 15 that employees in Europe may not be paid at all, and that the salary bill due to be paid this week amounted to $75 million before tax. Lehman's U.K. defined- benefit pension plan also had what the administrators called a ``significant deficit.''

Equities Unit

Barclays Plc, which today agreed to purchase Lehman's investment banking, fixed-income and equities sales, trading and research divisions in North America, is also in talks to take over parts of Lehman's equities business in Europe, Barclays President Robert Diamond told analysts today.

Lehman has received thousands of termination notices regarding its positions in the derivatives market, though it may take months or years to ascertain losses, the administrators said.

While some client trading positions were being transferred to third parties, others would take time to assess, Steven Pearson, PwC partner, said. ``Clearly we are here to look after Lehman in the first instance and the market in the second instance,'' Pearson said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Poppy Trowbridge in London at ptrowbridge@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 17, 2008 13:38 EDT