The Collapse of Lehman Brothers
Read Time - 4 mins History of Lehman It all started in 1844, when Henry Lehman, a German immigrant, came to Montgomery, Alabama and started a small general store in 1844. Henry Lehman and his brothers, Emanuel and Mayer, later founded Lehman Brothers in the year 1950. The company that started by selling dry-goods moved to cotton trade. After the death of Henry Lehman, in 1855, the other brothers expanded Lehman Brothers and started commodities trading and brokerage services. To complement the growth of the U.S. economy, Lehman Brothers prospered over the decades and reached a value of $600 billion before the collapse in 2008. Although, Lehman has overcome a lot of challenges over the years such as the railroad bankruptcies in the 1800s, the Great Depression in the 1930s, both world wars, the American Express spun off in 1994, the Long Term Capital Management collapse alongside the Russian debt defaults in 1998, the global recession or the subprime mortgage crisis wa...