Lehman Claims Trades Exceed $2.3 Billion Before Plan Hearing
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEHMQ) creditors traded more than $2.3 billion of claims against the defunct investment bank in November as a hearing on its liquidation plan approached, SecondMarket Holdings Inc. said.
Lehman won a judge’s approval on Dec. 6 for a $65 billion payout plan that would give the average creditor about 18 cents on the dollar in the next few years. The face value of Lehman claims traded in the past 12 months exceeded $30.5 billion, compared with $1.5 billion for second-place Mesa Air Group Inc., SecondMarket said today in a monthly report.
SecondMarket, which deals in illiquid securities, in November began tracking 14 newly bankrupt companies with liabilities of more than $38 billion, including AMR Corp., the parent of American Airlines. In the first three quarters of the year, liabilities listed in new bankruptcies totaled about $10 billion a month, SecondMarket said.
The first documented claim trade in Solyndra LLC, a failed solar-panel maker that was backed by U.S. government loan guarantees, was on Nov. 9, according to SecondMarket data. Two days later, Jefferies & Co. bought a $713,391 claim on bankrupt MF Global Holdings Ltd. from Traders Media LLC, according to a court filing.
The dollar value of November trading fell 27 percent from October, to about $2.4 billion, SecondMarket said. Trading volume surged to more than 1,000 claims from 651 the previous month. November’s total was boosted by Asian retail investors’ sales of Lehman bonds, SecondMarket said.
Once the world’s fourth-biggest investment bank, New York- based Lehman filed for bankruptcy in 2008 listing debt of $613 billion. In some months, about $3 billion of its claims changed hands, according to SecondMarket.
The case is In re Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., 08-13555, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
To contact the reporter on this story: Linda Sandler in New York at lsandler@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Pickering at jpickering@bloomberg.net
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