Scandal: Weil Gotshal Demands $55 Million For 4.5 Months Of Lehman Liquidation Work

If this does not blow the lid on the thousands of teaparties held in the U.S., then likely nothing will. Weil Gotshal, which is doing nothing more than liquidating the bankrupt estate of Lehman Brothers' non-brokerage operations (the brokerage was stolen by Barclays for pennies on the dollar while Weil stood by the sidelines and gave its blessing to this daylight robbery), has demanded that the wifebeater (aka James "Stella" Peck) approve a $55 million payment for its fees and expenses. Alvarez & Marsal will likely follow suit shortly with another comparable fee demand.

I will discuss this filing in detail tomorrow, but in the meantime I present the compensation application in all its scandalously greedy glory tomorrow. In the meantime, if there is any lawyer at Weil who did not work on the Lehman liquidation, please raise your hand.

Curiously, how pissed must W. Michael Bond's wife be, after he worked 1,284 billable hours in the 100 work day period between Sept 15 and Jan 31 (exclude 5 holidays and use networkdays on excel) on this mother of all liquidations. As a reference, there are 2,400 hours in that same interval, and assuming 7 hours of sleep a day, 1 hour of assorted bathroom functions, and 1 hour of meals, W.M. Bond spent 85.6% of his non-sleep work day focused exclusively on Lehman and Lehman alone... or at least so he billed.

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This Should Be Good For At Least Half A Point In Recovery

Lehman bondholders have been reduced to selling Lehman branded merchandise, including pens, canvas bags, umbrellas, and stress balls on Ebay to generate recoveries according to Bloomberg.

Tote bags, golf umbrellas, stress balls, Tiffany paperweights and other stuff now stored in closets and warehouses from New York to Chicago will be returned to Lehman and sold to pay creditors, according to a 15-page court filing today. Lehman filed the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history in September and has about $200 billion in unsecured liabilities left to pay, Chief Executive Officer Bryan Marsal said on Jan. 28.

As part of the arrangement, Lehman is barred from trying to sell the objects to Barclays’ employees, according to court papers. Lehman may have to resort to the Internet to move the goods, said Steve Ivy, chief executive officer of Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries.

“EBay might be the best place to sell the merchandise,” Ivy said in a phone interview. The “trinkets” are more likely to appeal to former Lehman employees than to collectors, he said.

A full itemization of the objects for sale, expected to bring untold riches to the Lehman Brothers official and ad hoc creditor committees, includes:

• 1,630 green canvas duffle bags with Lehman ribbon
• 75 Waterford Marquis Treviso crystal clocks
• 682 white Lehman coffee mugs
• 130 Swiss Army pens
• an English beechwood-lined sterling silver box from 1902
• 200 Lehman conference pens
• 12 pairs of Links of London cufflinks
• 24 Screwpull wine openers inscribed "LB,"
• 24 Titleist PRO VI golf balls inscribed "‘LB,"
• 30 girl Teddy Bears
• 18 large, ivory womens’ F&G stretch snap shirts and one Tiffany shooting star.
  

It is good to know that Lehman at least made their teddy bears anatomically correct. That itself would be worth a couple of extra bucks for Lehman knickknack aficionados (assuming sales tax is not imposed on purchases).

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More Bad News For Bankrupt Lehman: CFO Resigns

The bad news for creditors of bankrupt Lehman Bros just keep coming. First, the bankruptcy judge presiding over the case James Peck gets arrested a month ago for mauling his wife, and is likely to be removed from the case, and now interim CFO David Cole, who came on board in October when Alvarez and Marsal was hired to run Lehman in exchange for something like $300,000 a day, has said he will resign to pursue other less mind-numbingly deranged ventures than liquidating the biggest bankruptcy in history. It is not clear if he will still remain at A&M where he is listed as a Managing Director, but we wouldn't blame him at all if he has decided he is totally done with finance in general. After charging $750/hour over the past 5 months for dismantling Lehman, we can easily see how retirement is a feasible endgame. Sphere: Related Content

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