what was lehman brothers 
lehman brothers was a global financial services firm it provided investment banking trading investment management private banking research brokerage private equity and associated services the firm was one of the largest investment banks in the united states until sept 15 2008 when it declared bankruptcy its failure was largely caused and accelerated by the subprime mortgage crisis its bankruptcy remains the largest ever at the time of its chapter 11 filing lehman brothers was in operation for 164 years 1understanding lehman brotherslehman brothers was considered one of the major players in the global banking and financial services industries at the time of its bankruptcy filing lehman held some 600 billion in assets diversified globally and was the fourth largest investment firm in the u s it invested heavily in mortgage origination in the u s from 1996 to 2006 in large part by utilizing leverage at its peak at a ratio of about 30 1 4 as such some say the firm became a de facto real estate hedge fund when real estate values peaked and began to falter between 2007 and 2008 lehman brothers became especially vulnerable 5over much of 2008 the firm fought off losses by issuing stock selling assets and reducing costs issuing debt under such conditions became difficult to impossible it had huge tranches of subprime and low rated mortgage loans on its books that it either could not or chose not to sell 6