Sixteen years after Lehman Brothers’ collapse, Jefferies CEO Richard Handler shared the e-mail he despatched to the financial institution’s former CEO, Richard “Dick” Fuld, on the day the agency filed for the most important chapter in U.S. historical past.
In a sequence of Instagram posts, Handler revealed the alternate with Fuld, which occurred simply earlier than Lehman’s fall despatched the worldwide economic system right into a tailspin.
“I met you very briefly once, and although it is of absolutely no help to you right now, I want you to know that I have always been in awe of the company you built,” Handler wrote to Fuld three days before the collapse. He added that he had “modeled a lot of Jefferies” on the monetary large.
On September 15, 2008, when Lehman Brothers filed for chapter with greater than $600 billion in debt, Handler despatched a remaining e mail to Fuld: “I am so very sorry for you and the special company that you built.”
Fuld responded two weeks later, thanking Handler for his “note of support” and “for thinking of me (and) the firm.”
What did Wall Road be taught from Lehman Brothers?
Lehman Brothers, the 158-year-old financial institution that had survived the 1929 Wall Road crash, was deemed “too big to fail.” On the time, Jefferies Group was a rising funding financial institution, with Handler having lately taken the helm.
Reflecting on the collapse, Handler stated the disaster supplied “life-saving lessons,” together with that “arrogance always kills” and “life will go on.”
By 2009, Jefferies had reworked from a small fairness buying and selling store to a major seller for the New York Fed, permitting it to take part within the open-market shopping for and promoting of securities—important to the Federal Reserve’s operations.
Handler’s 10 classes:
1. There isn’t any such factor as a “slight liquidity crisis”
2. Every thing in life is fragile
3. Generally unhealthy issues occur to good individuals
4. By no means take something or anybody as a right
5. Leverage cannot distinguish between good or unhealthy, however it’s going to fortunately (amplify) each
6. You by no means have as a lot time as you could suppose
7. Character is set throughout powerful occasions
8. Vanity all the time kills
9. In case your debt holders are in danger, your shareholders will in all probability be worn out
10. If you happen to keep constructive by way of the storm, the solar all the time finally rises, and life will go on.
See the e-mail alternate
The place is Dick Fuld now?
Fuld ran Lehman for 14 years earlier than the financial institution collapsed.
Within the years that adopted, Fuld repeatedly blamed the federal government (and their very aggressive push to extend homeownership) for Lehman’s demise, earlier than proudly owning as much as some “unhealthy judgments” years later.
Regardless of being the self-confessed “most hated man in America,” Fuld has nonetheless managed to keep up a profession within the monetary business.
In the present day, the 78-year-old is operating Matrix Personal Capital Group which presents funding recommendation to “high-net-worth” shoppers.
In his first (and final) speech for the reason that monetary crash, in 2015, Fuld stated: “Whatever it is, enjoy the ride. No regrets.”
A model of this story initially printed on Fortune.com on Sept. 16, 2024.
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This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
