text:
Blackstone Inc.

Blackstone Inc. (informally referred to as just "Blackstone") is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last three decades, while its real estate business has actively acquired commercial real estate across the globe. Blackstone is also active in credit, infrastructure, hedge funds, secondaries, growth equity, and insurance solutions. As of May 2024, Blackstone has more than US$1 trillion in total assets under management, making it the largest alternative investment firm globally.

Blackstone was founded in 1985 as a mergers and acquisitions firm by Peter G. Peterson and Stephen A. Schwarzman, who had previously worked together at Lehman Brothers.

Founding and early history
Blackstone was founded in 1985 by Peter G. Peterson and Stephen A. Schwarzman with US$400000 (equivalent to $million in ) in seed capital. The founders named their firm "Blackstone" using a cryptogram derived from their names: "Schwarz" is German for "black"; "Peter", "Petros" or "Petra" (Πέτρος and πετρα, the masculine and feminine rendering of the word, respectively), means "stone" or "rock" in Greek. The two founders had previously worked together at Lehman Brothers. There, Schwarzman served as head of global mergers and acquisitions business. Prominent investment banker Roger C. Altman, another Lehman veteran, left his position as a managing director of Lehman Brothers to join Peterson and Schwarzman at Blackstone in 1987, but left in 1992 to join the Clinton Administration as Deputy Treasury Secretary and later founded advisory investment bank Evercore Partners in 1995.

Blackstone was originally formed as a mergers and acquisitions advisory boutique. It advised on the 1987 merger of investment banks E. F. Hutton & Co. and Shearson Lehman Brothers, collecting a $3.5 million fee.

From the outset in 1985, Schwarzman and Peterson planned to enter the private equity business but had difficulty in raising their first fund because neither had ever led a leveraged buyout. Blackstone finalized fundraising for its first private equity fund in the aftermath of Black Monday, the October 1987 global stock market crash. After two years of providing strictly advisory services, Blackstone decided to pursue a merchant banking model after its founders determined that many situations required an investment partner rather than just an advisor. The largest investors in the first fund included Prudential Insurance Company, Nikko Securities and the General Motors pension fund.

Blackstone also ventured into other businesses, most notably investment management. In 1987 Blackstone entered into a 50–50 partnership with the founders of BlackRock, Larry Fink (current CEO of BlackRock), and Ralph Schlosstein (CEO of Evercore). The two founders, who had previously run the mortgage-backed securities divisions at First Boston and Lehman Brothers, respectively, initially joined Blackstone to manage an investment fund and provide advice to financial institutions. They also planned to use a Blackstone fund to invest in financial institutions and help build an asset management business specializing in fixed income investments.

As the business grew, Japanese bank Nikko Securities acquired a 20% interest in Blackstone for a $100 million investment in 1988 (valuing the firm at $500 million). Nikko's investment allowed for a major expansion of the firm and its investment activities. The growth firm also recruited politician and investment banker David Stockman from Salomon Brothers in 1988. Stockman led many key deals in his time at the firm but had a mixed record with his investments. He left Blackstone in 1999 to start his own private equity firm, Heartland Industrial Partners, based in Greenwich, Connecticut.

The firm advised CBS Corporation on its 1988 sale of CBS Records to Sony to form what would become Sony Music Entertainment. In June 1989, Blackstone acquired freight railroad operator CNW Corporation. That same year, Blackstone partnered with Salomon Brothers to raise $600 million to acquire distressed thrifts in the midst of the savings and loan crisis.

1990s

In 1990, Blackstone launched its hedge funds business, initially intended to manage investments for Blackstone senior management. That same year, Blackstone formed a partnership with J. O. Hambro Magan in the UK and Indosuez in France. Additionally, Blackstone and Silverman acquired a 65% interest in Prime Motor Inn's Ramada and Howard Johnson franchises for $140 million, creating Hospitality Franchise Systems as a holding company.

In 1991, Blackstone created its Europe unit and launched its real estate investment business with the acquisition of a series of hotel businesses under the leadership of Henry Silverman. In October 1991, Blackstone and Silverman added Days Inns of America for $250 million. In 1993, Hospitality Franchise Systems acquired Super 8 Motels for $125 million. Silverman would ultimately leave Blackstone to serve as CEO of HFS, which later became Cendant Corporation.

Blackstone made a number of notable investments in the early and mid-1990s, including Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company (1991), Six Flags (1991), US Radio (1994), Centerplate (1995), MEGA Brands (1996). Also, in 1996, Blackstone partnered with the Loewen Group, the second-largest funeral home and cemetery operator in North America, to acquire funeral home and cemetery businesses. The partnership's first acquisition was a $295 million buyout of Prime Succession from GTCR.

In 1995, Blackstone sold its stake in BlackRock to PNC Financial Services for $250 million. Between 1995 and 2014, PNC reported $12 billion in pretax revenues and capital gains from BlackRock. Schwarzman later described the selling of BlackRock as his worst business decision ever.

In 1997, Blackstone completed fundraising for its third private equity fund, with approximately $4 billion of investor commitments and a $1.1 billion real estate investment fund. Also in 1997, Blackstone made its first investment in Allied Waste. In 1998, Blackstone sold a 7% interest in its management company to AIG, valuing Blackstone at $2.1 billion. In 1999, Blackstone partnered with Apollo Management to provide capital for Allied Waste's acquisition of Browning-Ferris Industries. Blackstone's investment in Allied was one of its largest at that point in the firm's history.

In 1999, Blackstone launched its mezzanine capital business. It brought in five professionals, led by Howard Gellis from Nomura Holding America's Leveraged Capital Group, to manage the business.

Blackstone's investments in the late 1990s included AMF Group (1996), Haynes International (1997), American Axle (1997), Premcor (1997), CommNet Cellular (1998), Graham Packaging (1998), Centennial Communications (1999), Bresnan Communications (1999), and PAETEC Holding Corp. (1999). Haynes and Republic Technologies International both had problems and ultimately filed bankruptcy.

Blackstone's investments in telecommunications businesses—four cable TV systems in rural areas (TW Fanch 1 and 2, Bresnan Communications and Intermedia Partners IV) and a cell phone operator in the Rocky Mountain states (CommNet Cellular) were among the most successful of the era, generating $1.5 billion of profits for Blackstone's funds.

Blackstone Real Estate Advisers, its real estate affiliate, bought the Watergate complex in Washington D.C. in July 1998 for $39 million and sold it to Monument Realty in August 2004.

Early 2000s
In October 2000, Blackstone acquired the mortgage for 7 World Trade Center from the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association.

In July 2002, Blackstone completed fundraising for a $6.45 billion private equity fund, Blackstone Capital Partners IV, the largest private equity fund at that time.

With a significant amount of capital in its new fund, Blackstone was one of a handful of private equity investors capable of completing large transactions in the adverse conditions of the early 2000s recession. At the end of 2002, Blackstone, together with Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital, acquired Houghton Mifflin Company for $1.28 billion. The transaction represented one of the first large club deals completed since the collapse of the Dot-com bubble.

In 2002, Hamilton E. James joined Blackstone, where he serves as president and chief operating officer. He also serves on the firm's executive and management committees, and its board of directors. In late 2002, Blackstone acquired TRW Automotive in a $4.7 billion buyout, the largest private equity deal announced that year (the deal was completed in early 2003). TRW's parent was acquired by Northrop Grumman, while Blackstone purchased its automotive parts business, a major supplier of automotive systems. Blackstone also purchased a majority interest in Columbia House, a music-buying club, in mid-2002.

Blackstone made a significant investment in Financial Guaranty Insurance Company (FGIC), a monoline bond insurer alongside PMI Group, The Cypress Group and CIVC Partners. FGIC incurred heavy losses, along with other bond insurers in the 2008 credit crisis.

Two years later, in 2005, Blackstone was one of seven private equity firms involved in the buyout of SunGard in a transaction valued at $11.3 billion. Blackstone's partners in the acquisition were Silver Lake Partners, Bain Capital, Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Providence Equity Partners, and TPG Capital. This represented the largest leveraged buyout completed since the takeover of RJR Nabisco at the end of the 1980s leveraged buyout boom. Also, at the time of its announcement, SunGard was the largest buyout of a technology company in history, a distinction it ceded to the buyout of Freescale Semiconductor. The SunGard transaction is also notable for the number of firms involved, the largest club deal completed to that point. The involvement of seven firms in the consortium was criticized by investors in private equity who considered crossholdings among firms to be generally unattractive.

In 2006, Blackstone launched its long/short equity hedge fund business, Kailix Advisors. According to Blackstone, as of September 30, 2008, Kailix Advisors had $1.9 billion of assets under management. In December 2008, Blackstone announced that Kailix would be spun off to its management team to form a new fund as an independent entity backed by Blackstone.

While Blackstone was active on the corporate investment side, it was also busy pursuing real estate investments. Blackstone acquired Prime Hospitality and Extended Stay America in 2004. Blackstone followed these investments with the acquisition of La Quinta Inns & Suites in 2005. Blackstone's largest transaction, the $26 billion buyout of Hilton Hotels Corporation, occurred in 2007 under the tenure of Hilton CFO Stephen Bollenbach. Extended Stay Hotels was sold to The Lightstone Group in July 2007 and Prime Hospitality's Wellesley Inns were folded into La Quinta. La Quinta Inns & Suites was spun out for IPO in 2014 and later acquired by Wyndham Hotels & Resorts.

Buyouts (2005–2007)
During the buyout boom of 2006 and 2007, Blackstone completed some of the largest leveraged buyouts. Its most notable transactions during this period included:

Initial public offering in 2007
In 2004, Blackstone had explored the possibility of creating a business development company (BDC), Blackridge Investments, similar to vehicles pursued by Apollo Management. Blackstone failed to raise capital through an initial public offering that summer and the project were shelved. It also planned to raise a fund on the Amsterdam stock exchange in 2006, but its rival, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., launched a $5 billion fund there that soaked up all demand for such funds, and Blackstone abandoned its project.

In 2007, Blackstone acquired Alliant Insurance Services, an insurance brokerage firm. The company was sold to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in 2012.

On June 21, 2007, Blackstone became a public company via an initial public offering, selling a 12.3% stake in the company for $4.13 billion, in the largest U.S. IPO since 2002.

2008 to 2010
During the 2007–2008 financial crisis, Blackstone closed only a few transactions. In January 2008, Blackstone made a small co-investment alongside TPG Capital and Apollo Management in their buyout of Harrah's Entertainment, although that transaction had been announced during the buyout boom period. Other notable investments that Blackstone completed in 2008 and 2009 included AlliedBarton, Performance Food Group, Apria Healthcare, and CMS Computers.

In July 2008, Blackstone, NBC Universal, and Bain Capital acquired The Weather Channel from Landmark Communications for $3.5 billion. In 2015, the digital assets were sold to IBM for $2 billion. In 2018, the remainder of the company was sold to Byron Allen for $300 million.

In December 2009, Blackstone acquired Busch Entertainment Corporation from Anheuser-Busch InBev for $2.9 billion.

In November 2013, Merlin Entertainments, owned in part by Blackstone Group, became a public company via an initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange.

In August 2010, Blackstone announced it would buy Dynegy, an energy firm, for nearly $5 billion, but the acquisition was terminated in November 2010.

Investments 2011 to 2015

 * In February 2011, the company acquired Centro Properties Group US from Centro Retail Trust (now Vicinity Centres) for $9.4 billion. The company became Brixmor Property Group and Blackstone sold its remaining interest in the company in August 2016.
 * In November 2011, a fund managed by the company acquired medical biller Emdeon for $3 billion.
 * In late 2011, Blackstone Group LP acquired Jack Wolfskin, a German camping equipment company. In 2017, the company was handed over to its lenders.
 * In August 2012, Blackstone was part of a consortium that financed Knight Capital after a software glitch threatened Knight's ability to continue operations.
 * In October 2012, the company acquired G6 Hospitality, operator of Motel 6 & Studio 6 motels from AccorHotels, for $1.9 billion.
 * In November 2012, the company acquired a controlling interest in Vivint, Vivint Solar, and 2GIG Technologies. In February 2013, 2GIG was flipped to Nortek Security & Control, LLC for $135M.
 * In April 2013, the company discussed buying Dell, but it did not pursue the acquisition.
 * In June 2013, Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII acquired an industrial portfolio from First Potomac Realty Trust for $241.5 million. Part of this portfolio was developed by StonebridgeCarras as Oakville Triangle (Now "National Landing")
 * In September 2013, Blackstone announced a strategic investment in ThoughtFocus Technologies LLC, an information technology service provider.
 * In August 2013, Blackstone acquired Strategic Partners, manager of secondaryfunds, from Credit Suisse.
 * In February 2014, Blackstone purchased a 20% stake in the Italian luxury brand Versace for €150 million.
 * In April 2014, Blackstone's charitable arm, the Blackstone Charitable Foundation, donated $4 million to create the Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network in Colorado. The program encourages increased collaboration among local business leaders with the goal of retaining high-growth companies in the state.
 * In May 2014, Blackstone Group acquired the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas resort from Deutsche Bank for $1.73 billion.
 * In August 2014, Blackstone Energy Partners acquired Shell Oil's 50% stake in a shale-gas field in the Haynesville Shale for $1.2 billion.
 * In January 2015, Blackstone Real Estate Partners VI announced it would sell a Gold Fields House in Sydney to Dalian Wanda Group for A$415 million.
 * In June 2015, Blackstone acquired the Willis Tower in Chicago for $1.3 billion.
 * In July 2015, Blackstone acquired Excel Trust, a real estate investment trust, for around $2 billion.
 * In November 2015, the company agreed to sell facility management firm GCA Services Group to Goldman Sachs and Thomas H. Lee Partners.

Investments since 2016

 * In January 2016, Blackstone Real Estate Partners VIII L.P. acquired BioMed Realty Trust for $8 billion.
 * In February 2016, Blackstone sold four office buildings to Douglas Emmett for $1.34 billion.
 * In April 2016, Blackstone acquired 84 percent of Hewlett Packard Enterprise's stake in the Indian IT services firm Mphasis.
 * On January 4, 2017, Blackstone acquired SESAC, a music-rights organization.
 * On February 10, 2017, Aon PLC agreed to sell its human resources outsourcing platform for $4.3 billion to Blackstone Group L.P., creating a new company called Alight Solutions.
 * On June 19, 2017, Blackstone acquired a majority interest in The Office Group, valuing the company at $640 million.
 * In July 2017, the company announced an investment in Leonard Green & Partners.
 * In January 2018, the company acquired Pure Industrial, a Canadian real estate investment trust for C$2.5 billion.
 * In January 2018, the company announced acquisition agreement for 55% of Thomson Reuters Financial & Risk unit for $20 billion.
 * In March 2018, Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, Inc. acquired a 22 million square foot portfolio of industrial properties from Cabot Properties for $1.8 billion.
 * In March 2018, Blackstone's Strategic Capital Holdings Fund invested in Rockpoint Group.
 * In March 2018, the company's Strategic Capital Holdings Fund announced an investment in Kohlberg & Company, a private equity firm.
 * In August 2018, PSAV was able to merge with Encore Global due to the help from an investment firm Blackstone.
 * In September 2018, the company acquires control of Luminor Bank in the Baltic countries.
 * In October 2018, Blackstone launched Refinitiv, the company resulting from its January deal for a 55 per-cent stake in Thomson Reuters Financial and Risk business.
 * In October 2018, Blackstone announced to buy Clarus. The deal includes assets worth $2.6 billion.
 * In March 2019, Blackstone purchased, with Yankee Global Enterprises, a minority stake in YES Network.
 * In April 2019, Blackstone acquired a majority stake in the tube packaging company, Essel Propack for $310 million.
 * In June 2019, Blackstone announced it had teamed with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and KIRKBI to buy Merlin Entertainment, the owners of Legoland in a deal worth £5.9 billion (about $7.5 billion). This would be the 2nd time Blackstone would own the company as they previously purchased it in 2005.
 * On July 15, 2019, Blackstone announced its plans to acquire Vungle Inc., a leading mobile performance marketing platform.
 * In September 2019, Blackstone announced it agreed to purchase 65% controlling interest in Great Wolf Resorts from Centerbridge Partners. They plan to form a joint venture worth $2.9 billion or more to own the company.
 * On November 8, 2019, Blackstone Group acquired a majority stake in MagicLab, the owner of dating app Bumble.
 * Blackstone Group on November 15, 2019, invested $167 million in the holding company of Future Lifestyle Fashions Ltd., Ryka Commercial Ventures Pvt. Ltd.
 * On November 18, 2019, Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, Inc. acquired the Bellagio resort in Las Vegas, Nevada from MGM Resorts in a sale-leaseback transaction.
 * On November 25, 2019, Reuters reported that Blackstone planned to invest $400 million in a joint venture with Swiss drug company Ferring. The joint venture will work on gene therapy for bladder cancer. The investment represents Blackstone Group's largest investment in drug development to date.
 * In March 2020, Blackstone announced that it is buying a majority stake in HealthEdge, a health-care software company. The deal, worth $700 million, was completed on April 13, 2020.
 * In July 2020, Blackstone invested $200 million in the Swedish oat milk brand Oatly, for a 7% stake in the company, triggering outrage among some segments of its customer base.
 * In August 2020, Blackstone announced that it would buy a majority stake in Ancestry.com for $4.7 billion (including debt).
 * In August 2020, Blackstone acquired Takeda Consumer Healthcare for $2.3 billion.
 * In December 2020, Blackstone invested nearly $400 million in Liftoff, a mobile advertising company.
 * In January 2021, Blackstone acquired a majority shareholding in Bourne Leisure, a UK holiday and leisure company that owns Butlin's, Haven Holidays, and Warner Leisure, for £3 billion.
 * In March 2021, Blackstone made a $6.2 billion takeover bid for Australian casino operator Crown Resorts, offering a 20% premium to its closing share price at the time of the offer. Blackstone held at the time a near 10% stake in the company.
 * In April 2021, Blackstone acquired eOne Music from Hasbro for $385 million.
 * In June 2021, Blackstone agreed to acquire datacenter operator Quality Technology Services for approximately $10 billion.
 * In July 2021, MGM Resorts International announced it sold Aria Resort and Casino and Vdara to Blackstone for $3.89 billion in a sale-leaseback transaction.
 * In July 2021, Blackstone Group and AIG announced that the company would acquire 9.9% of AIG's life and retirement insurance investment portfolio for $2.2 billion cash, during AIG's spin-off of the unit by IPO in 2022. The two firms also entered a long-term asset management agreement for about 25% of AIG's life and retirement portfolio, scheduled to increase in subsequent years.
 * In August 2021, the merger of two Blackstone portfolio companies, Vungle and Liftoff, was announced. Both companies are in the mobile advertising space.
 * In October 2021, the Blackstone Group acquired a majority stake of Spanx, Inc. The company was valued at $1.2 billion. The deal was prepared by an all-female investment team from Blackstone, and it was announced that the board of directors would be all female.
 * In October 2021, Blackstone acquired the Nucleus Network, Australia's premier clinical researcher, which is providing staple "healthy" volunteers large financial rewards for drug trials.
 * On February 14, 2022, Crown Resorts accepted Blackstone's takeover offer. Blackstone will pay $6.6 billion for 90% of shares outstanding.
 * In April 2022, Blackstone agreed to acquire the Austin-based American Campus Communities, Inc. for nearly $13 billion.
 * In April 2022, Blackstone announced that it would acquire PS Business Parks for $7.6 billion.
 * In October 2022, Emerson Electric agreed to sell a 55 percent majority stake in its climate technologies business to Blackstone in a $14billion deal including debt.
 * In June 2023, Blackstone acquired cloud-based event-software provider Cvent for $4.6 billion.
 * In October 2023, Blackstone announced that, as part of a club deal alongside private equity firm Vista Equity Partners, it would acquire leading energy market analytics and simulation software firm Energy Exemplar for approximately $1.6 billion.
 * In November 2023, Blackstone acquired the UK-based software company Civica for approximately $2.5 billion.
 * In December 2023, Blackstone announced an agreement to acquire a majority Stake in Sony Payment Services Inc. from Sony Bank.
 * In January 2024, Blackstone agreed to acquire Canadian real-estate company Tricon Residential for $3.5 billion.
 * In February 2024, Blackstone acquired online pet marketplace Rover.com for $2.3 billion in an all-cash deal that it first announced in November 2023.
 * In April 2024, Blackstone announced a deal for a 50.7% majority share in Irish turnkey Data Centre developer Winthrop Technologies.

IBS Software
In May 2023, Blackstone entered into an agreement to divest its stake in IBS Software, a Kerala-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider. The transaction, valued at $450 million, involved the sale of Blackstone's stake to the global private equity firm Apax.

Hotel Investment Partners
In October 2023, Blackstone divested its stake in the Spanish hotel conglomerate Hotel Investment Partners (HIP) to the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC. As part of the agreement, GIC secured a 35% stake in HIP, with the deal establishing a valuation exceeding €4 billion for the company.

Embassy Office Parks
In December 2023, Blackstone announced its intention to divest its entire 23.59% stake, valued at $833 million, in Embassy Office Parks, India's largest real estate investment trust. The decision came four years after the initial listing of the REIT, as revealed in a term sheet disclosed by Reuters.

Operations
Blackstone operates through four primary departments: private equity; real estate; hedge funds; and credit.

Corporate private equity
, Blackstone was the world's largest private equity firm by capital commitments as ranked by Private Equity International's PEI 300 ranking. After dropping to second behind KKR in the 2022 ranking, it regained the top spot in 2023, and retained it in 2024. The firm invests through minority investments, corporate partnerships, and industry consolidations, and occasionally start-up investments. The firm focuses on friendly investments in large capitalization companies.

Blackstone has primarily relied on private equity funds, pools of committed capital from pension funds, insurance companies, endowments, fund of funds, high-net-worth individuals, sovereign wealth funds, and other institutional investors. From 1987 to its IPO in 2007, Blackstone invested approximately $20 billion in 109 private equity transactions.

Blackstone's most notable investments include Allied Waste, AlliedBarton Security Services, Graham Packaging, Celanese, Nalco, HealthMarkets, Houghton Mifflin, American Axle, TRW Automotive, Catalent Pharma Solutions, Prime Hospitality, Legoland, Madame Tussauds, Luxury Resorts (LXR), Pinnacle Foods, Hilton Hotels Corporation, Motel 6, Apria Healthcare, Travelport, The Weather Channel (United States) and The PortAventura Resort. In 2009, Blackstone purchased Busch Entertainment (comprising the Sea World Parks, Busch Garden Parks and the two water parks). In 2020 it acquired Ancestry.com.

In 2012, Blackstone acquired a controlling interest in Utah-based Vivint, Inc., a home automation, security, and energy company.

Real estate
Blackstone's most notable real estate investments have included QTS, EQ Office, Hilton Worldwide, Trizec Properties, Center Parcs UK, La Quinta Inns & Suites, Motel 6, Wyndham Worldwide, Southern Cross Healthcare and Vicinity Centres.

The purchase and subsequent IPO of Southern Cross led to controversy in the UK. Part of the purchase involved splitting the business into a property company, NHP, and a nursing home business, which Blackstone claimed would become "the leading company in the elderly care market". In May 2011, Southern Cross, now independent, was almost bankrupt, jeopardizing 31,000 elderly residents in 750 care homes. It denied blame, although Blackstone was widely accused in the media for selling on the company with an unsustainable business model and crippled with an impossible sale and leaseback strategy.

After the 2007–2010 subprime mortgage crisis in the United States, Blackstone Group LP bought more than $5.5 billion worth of single-family homes to rent, and then be sold when the prices rise.

In 2014, Blackstone sold Northern California office buildings for $3.5 billion. The buildings sold in San Francisco and Silicon Valley included 26 office buildings and two development parcels.

In 2018, a critique was raised regarding a purchase agreement on several hundred apartments in Frederiksberg, Denmark, between Blackstone's Danish partner North 360 and Frederiksberg Boligfond, a nonprofit housing organization Frederiksberg Municipality established in 1930. After resistance by residents and questions about the purchase agreement's legality, Blackstone withdrew from it in October 2019.

On December 1, 2022, Blackstone restricted withdrawals from its $125 billion real estate investment fund BREIT due to a surge in redemption requests from investors. The move caused investor consternation and limited the ability to attract new capital for BREIT.

Marketable alternative asset management
In 1990, Blackstone created a fund of hedge funds business to manage internal assets for Blackstone and its senior managers. This business evolved into Blackstone's marketable alternative asset management segment, which was opened to institutional investors. Among the investments included in this segment are funds of hedge funds, mezzanine funds, senior debt vehicles, proprietary hedge funds and closed-end mutual funds.

In March 2008, Blackstone acquired GSO Capital Partners, a credit-oriented alternative asset manager, for $620 million in cash and stock and up to $310 million through an earnout over the next five years based on earnings targets. The combined entity created one of the largest credit platforms in the alternative asset management business, with over $21 billion under management. GSO was founded in 2005 by Bennett Goodman, Tripp Smith, and Doug Ostrover. The GSO team had previously managed the leveraged finance businesses at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and later Credit Suisse First Boston, after it acquired DLJ. Blackstone was an original investor in GSO's funds. After the acquisition, Blackstone merged GSO's operations with its existing debt investment operations.

Warrantless disclosure of Motel 6 occupancies
In separate cases in 2018 and 2019, the hotel chain Motel 6, owned by Blackstone, agreed to settle for a total of $19.6 million for giving guest lists to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) without a warrant.

Ancestry acquisition and data leaks
In 2020, the firm acquired a majority stake in Ancestry.com, which controls access to genetic data on millions of individuals around the world, raising further concerns for the data privacy practices of the firm. This data was disclosed to Blackstone, and they have aggressively defended against class action litigation relating to misuse of the data of individuals who did not consent to their genetic testing, but were impacted through direct biological relations, or other means of identification.

Illegal child labor
An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor showed that more than 100 children had been working illegally for Packers Sanitation Services Inc (PSSI), a slaughterhouse cleaning firm owned by Blackstone, across the United States. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, PSSI was fined $15,138 by the Department of Labor for each minor-aged employee who was employed in breach of the law, totaling $1.5 million in civil money penalties.

Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest
The company has invested in companies with links to the commercialization and deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.

United Nations condemnation of the Invitation Homes project and lobbying efforts
In 2019, a United Nations report found that Blackstone's massive purchasing of single-family homes after the 2007–2008 financial crisis had "devastating consequences". The report alleged that Blackstone had abused tenants with exorbitant fees, rent hikes, and aggressive eviction practices, and that Blackstone's real estate practices had a disproportionate impact on communities of color, in part because the company targeted foreclosures resulting from subprime loans.

The report also condemned Blackstone for "using its significant resources and political leverage to undermine domestic laws and policies that would in fact improve access to adequate housing". Blackstone spent at least $6.2 million to defeat California's Proposition 10, which would have allowed cities to enact rent control. Blackstone is a member of the Real Estate Roundtable, a special interest group that spends millions on lobbying and political donations every year.

United Nations housing rapporteur Leilani Farha and UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights chair Surya Deva criticized Blackstone's business practices, including frequent rent increases and "aggressive" evictions, for contributing to the global housing crisis. Blackstone disputed these claims.

Executives
Source:
 * Stephen A. Schwarzman: chairman, CEO & co-founder
 * Jonathan D. Gray: president & COO
 * Hamilton E. James: executive vice chairman
 * Joseph Baratta: Global Head of private equity
 * David Blitzer: Global Head of tactical opportunities

Board of directors

 * Stephen A. Schwarzman: chairman of the board of directors and the executive committee
 * Hamilton E. James: a member of the executive committee
 * Jonathan D. Gray: a member of the executive committee
 * Joseph Baratta: a member of the executive committee
 * James W. Breyer: independent director & member of the audit committee and the conflicts committee
 * Rochelle B. Lazarus: independent director & member of the audit committee and the conflicts committee
 * Jay O. Light: independent director & member of the audit committee and the conflicts committee
 * William G. Parrett: independent director & chairman of the audit committee and the conflicts committee
 * Ruth Porat: independent director
 * Reginald ("Reg") J. Brown: independent director

title: Blackstone Inc.


text: User talk:80.3.64.7

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User talk:80.3.64.7


text: Category:Elephants

title: Category:Elephants


text:
Stephen A. Schwarzman

Stephen Allen Schwarzman (born February 14, 1947) is an American businessman. He is the chairman and CEO of the Blackstone Group, a global private equity firm he established in 1985 with Peter G. Peterson. Schwarzman was briefly chairman of former president Donald Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum.

According to Forbes, Schwarzman has a net worth of $39 billion, as of April 2024.

Early life and education
Schwarzman was raised in a Jewish family in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, the son of Arline and Joseph Schwarzman. His father owned Schwarzman's, a former dry-goods store in Philadelphia, and was a graduate of the Wharton School.

Schwarzman's first business was a lawn-mowing operation when he was 14 years old, employing his younger twin brothers, Mark and Warren, to mow while Stephen brought in clients.

Schwarzman attended the Abington School District in suburban Philadelphia and graduated from Abington Senior High School in 1965. He attended Yale University, where he was a member of senior society Skull and Bones and founded the Davenport Ballet Society. After graduating in 1969, he briefly served in the U.S. Army Reserve before attending Harvard Business School, where he graduated in 1972.

Investment career
Schwarzman's first job in financial services was with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, an investment bank that merged with Credit Suisse in 2000. After business school, Schwarzman worked at the investment bank Lehman Brothers, became a managing director at age 31, and then head of global mergers and acquisitions. In 1985, Schwarzman and his boss, Peter Peterson, started The Blackstone Group, which initially focused on mergers and acquisitions. Blackstone would branch into business acquisition, real estate, direct lending, alternative assets, and now has some $500 billion in assets under management.

When Blackstone went public in June 2007, it revealed in a securities filing that Schwarzman had earned about $398.3 million in fiscal 2006. He ultimately received $684 million for the part of his Blackstone stake he sold in the IPO, keeping a stake then worth $9.1 billion. In the following years, his compensations increased even more: he received $350 million in 2007 and $702.4 million in 2008 - partly due to stock awards. His salary was $734.2 million in 2015, $425 US million in 2016 and $786 US million in 2017. In 2022, he was paid $253 million.

In June 2007, Schwarzman described his view on financial markets with the statement: "I want war, not a series of skirmishes... I always think about what will kill off the other bidder."

In September 2011, Schwarzman was listed as a member of the international advisory board of the Russian Direct Investment Fund.

Political and economic views
Schwarzman is a Republican who favors lower taxes, lower government spending, and reproductive rights.

He raised $100,000 for George W. Bush's political endeavors.

In August 2010, Schwarzman compared the Obama administration's plan to raise the tax rate on carried interest to a war and Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939, stating, "It's a war. It's like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939." Schwarzman later apologized for the analogy. In 2012, Obama called Schwarzman and requested his assistance in brokering a budget agreement with Republicans in congress to avoid a fiscal cliff. Eventually a deal was brokered with Schwarzman's help. The new tax plan added $1 trillion of additional revenue by raising taxes, closing tax loopholes, and ending deductions. Obama later drafted a formal message of support for Schwarzman Scholars, an education initiative undertaken by Schwarzman.

He endorsed and fundraised for Mitt Romney in 2012. During the 2016 Republican primary, he declined to support any one particular candidate. He identified as center-right and said the eventual GOP nominee should appeal to independent voters, not the right wing of the Republican Party. At the same time, he had positive things to say about Hillary Clinton.

In early 2016, he said that in a two-candidate race he would prefer Donald Trump to Ted Cruz, saying that the nation needed a "cohesive, healing presidency, not one that's lurching either to the right or to the left." He had previously made a donation to Marco Rubio in 2014.

In late 2016, Schwarzman "helped put together" a team of corporate executives to advise Trump on jobs and the economy. The group, which includes JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Walt Disney boss Bob Iger and former General Electric leader Jack Welch, became Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum. In February, Schwarzman was named as chair of the 16-member President's Strategic and Policy Forum, which brought together "CEOs of America's biggest corporations, banks and investment firms" to consult with the president on "how to create jobs and improve growth for the U.S. economy." On August 16, 2017, following five members' resignations, President Trump announced via Twitter he was disbanding the forum.

He is a longtime friend of former president Donald Trump and provides outside counsel, and served as chair of Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum. In response to criticism for his involvement with the Trump administration, Schwarzman penned a letter to current Schwarzman Scholars, arguing that "having influence and providing sound advice is a good thing, even if it attracts criticism or requires some sacrifice”.

In private, Schwarzman called the January 6 United States Capitol attack an "insurrection" and "an affront to the democratic values we hold dear". However, he stopped short of criticizing Trump over the riot.

In December 2018, non-profit consumer advocacy organisation Public Citizen published a report titled: Self-Funded' Trump Now Propped Up By Super PAC Megadonors." The report disclosed that Schwarzman donated $344,000 in support of Trump's re-election campaign. Following his election, Trump appointed Schwarzman as the chairman of the White House Strategic and Policy Forum.

In 2020, Schwarzman donated $15 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super-PAC tied to Mitch McConnell, $3 million to Donald Trump's America First Action PAC, and a combined total for the election cycle of $33.5 million to Republican candidates. Several of the Republicans he funded voted against certifying the 2020 Presidential Election.

In 2022, Schwarzman indicated that he would not support the Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign, providing in a statement to Axios that it was "time for the Republican Party to turn to a new generation of leaders." In 2024, Schwarzman announced that he would support Donald Trump as a “vote for change”.

Wealth
According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he had a net worth of $32 billion as of October 2022. According to Forbes, Schwarzman has a net worth of $39 billion, as of April 2024.

In 2014, Schwarzman was named as one of Bloomberg's 50 Most Influential people of the year. In 2016, he was again named as one of Bloomberg's 50 Most Influential people of the year.

Philanthropy
In 2004, Schwarzman donated a new football stadium to Abington Senior High School—the Stephen A. Schwarzman Stadium. In 2007, Schwarzman was listed among Time's 100 Most Influential People in The World.

In early 2008, Schwarzman announced that he contributed $100 million toward the expansion of the New York Public Library, for which he serves as a trustee. The central reference building on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue was renamed The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. In 2018, Schwarzman donated $10 million to another library, the National Library of Israel.

On April 21, 2013, Schwarzman announced a $100 million personal gift to establish and endow a scholarship program in China, Schwarzman Scholars, modeled after the Rhodes Scholarship program. Schwarzman simultaneously announced a fundraising campaign with a goal of $200 million. The Schwarzman Scholars program is housed at Tsinghua University. Since its inception, the program has maintained ties to the United Front Work Department as well as other organizations and personnel affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party. Schwarzman has also worked on developing a network of scholars who understand China.

In spring 2015, Peter Salovey, the president of Yale University, announced that Schwarzman contributed $150 million to fund a campus center in the university's historic "Commons" dining facility. Additionally, Schwarzman is also a member of the Berggruen Institute's 21st Century Council.

He has sat on the board of trustees of New York-Presbyterian Hospital since 2016.

In early 2018, it was announced that Schwarzman gave $25 million to Abington High School, his alma mater. However, this donation was contingent on several conditions, including naming rights to the school. After the public learned about the deal, a new agreement was made and Schwarzman removed several of the conditions for his donation, including renaming the school.

In October 2018, Schwarzman donated $350 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to create the Schwarzman College of Computing.

In June 2019, the University of Oxford announced that Schwarzman had donated £150 million to establish the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, due to be completed for the university's 2024–25 academic year.

Schwarzman announced in February 2020 that he had signed The Giving Pledge, committing to give the majority of his wealth to philanthropic causes.

In October 2020, Schwarzman pledged to give $8 million to the USA Track and Field Foundation in the run-up to the 2021 Tokyo and 2024 Paris Olympics.

In December 2021, Schwarzman and his wife Christine gave $25 million to the Animal Medical Center of New York in New York City. The hospital was renamed The Stephen and Christine Schwarzman Animal Medical Center.

Personal life
Schwarzman married his first wife Ellen Philips in 1971, a trustee of Northwestern University and the Mount Sinai Medical Center. They had two children: film producer Teddy Schwarzman and writer and podcaster Zibby Owens. They divorced in 1990.

Schwarzman married Christine Hearst in 1995, an intellectual property lawyer who grew up on Long Island, New York. She has one child from a previous marriage.

He lives in a duplex apartment at 740 Park Avenue previously owned by John D. Rockefeller Jr. Schwarzman purchased the apartment from Saul Steinberg. He spent millions of dollars on both his sixtieth and seventieth birthday parties.

In 2011, The Wall Street Journal reported on the vast water consumption of wealthy Palm Beach residents during exceptional drought conditions. Schwarzman was listed as a top-five water user, having consumed 7,409,688 gallons between June 2010 and May 2011. The average Palm Beach resident consumes 108,000 gallons per year.

Other
In 1999, Schwarzman received the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award.

In 2018, Schwarzman was awarded the Plaque degree of the Order of the Aztec Eagle by President Enrique Peña Nieto, this in recognition of Schwarzman's work on behalf of the U.S. in support of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

In 2019, Schwarzman wrote his first book titled, What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence, "which draws from his experiences in business, philanthropy and public service." His book became a New York Times Best Seller. However, the title was included with a dagger next to it, used to indicate that retailers reported receiving bulk purchases.

In 2024, Schwarzman was awarded by King Charles III as Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for services to philanthropy.

title: Stephen A. Schwarzman


text:
Ursinus College

Ursinus College is a private liberal arts college in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1869 and occupies a 170 acre campus. Ursinus College's forerunner was the Freeland Seminary founded in 1848. Its $127 million endowment supports about 1,500 students. Students choose from 60 courses of study.

19th century
In 1867, members of the German Reformed Church began plans to establish a college where "young men could be liberally educated under the benign influence of Christianity." The founders hoped to establish an alternative to the seminary at Mercersburg, Pennsylvania (the present-day Lancaster Theological Seminary), a school they believed was increasingly heretical to traditional Reformed faith.

Two years later, the college was granted a charter by the Legislature of Pennsylvania to begin operations on the grounds of Todd's School (founded 1832) and the adjacent Freeland Seminary (founded 1848). Dr. John Bomberger, served as the college's first president from 1869 until his death in 1890. Bomberger proposed naming the college after Zacharias Ursinus, a 16th-century German theologian and an important figure in the Protestant Reformation.

In 1870, instruction began at the college in September; on October 4, the Zwinglian Literary Society was founded. For many years the annual opening meetings of "Zwing" and its rival society, Schaff, were the major events of the student year.

Women were first admitted in 1881, as a direct consequence of the closing of the Pennsylvania Female College in 1880. A separate literary society for women, The Olevian, was formed in 1885.

The town of Freeland was officially incorporated as the Borough of Collegeville in 1896. The Reading Railroad had named it that in 1869 — because of the Pennsylvania Female College; and not, as many believe, because of the then brand new Ursinus. However, in years since, the "college" in Collegeville has come to mean Ursinus.

The Ruby, Ursinus' yearbook, was first published by the Class of 1897. The name was a tribute to Professor Samuel Vernon Ruby, who collapsed as he was entering Bomberger Hall in 1896 and died in its chapel, surrounded by students and teachers who had gathered there for morning prayers.

20th Century
In 1921, the first aerial photograph of Ursinus was taken, by future college president D. L. Helfferich, and was published in the 1921 Ruby.

J. D. Salinger enrolled at Ursinus for the 1938 fall semester and spent one semester there before leaving. "'In 1938, Jerome D. Salinger, described as gallant and charming, came from New York City and lived in Ursinus’s Curtis Hall. He wrote a column in the student newspaper called “The Skipped Diploma,” but did not return for spring semester. The author of The Catcher in the Rye and other works later spoke fondly of Ursinus.' " At the start of the US's involvement in World War II, Ursinus' male enrollment decreased from 535 to 350 students. During the war, Ursinus made a concerted effort to bring in military students from across the country, even acquiring a Naval V-12 unit. It also accepted 3 students between 1939 and 1940 who were exiled from Austria and Germany because of the war.

In 1988, the F.W. Olin Foundation awarded a $5.37 million grant to Ursinus to construct a humanities building.

The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art opened on campus in 1989.

Phi Beta Kappa invited Ursinus into its ranks in 1992. At the time, only 242 of the nation's 3,500 colleges and universities had gained acceptance into the group.

Ursinus joined the Centennial Conference at its inception in 1993, a regional athletic conference, consisting of Swarthmore College, Bryn Mawr College, Haverford College, Dickinson College, Gettysburg College, Johns Hopkins University, Franklin & Marshall College and others.

In 1995, the college appointed Dr. John Strassburger as its 12th president, the first president from outside the Ursinus alumni group. Under President Strassburger, Ursinus initiated the Summer Fellows program in which selected students worked on individualized research projects with faculty advisors. During President Strassburger's tenure as president, Ursinus became affiliated with numerous prestigious groups such as the Annapolis Group, the Watson Foundation, the Kemper Scholars group and Project Pericles.

21st Century
Ursinus College was profiled in New York Times education editor Loren Pope's popular guidebook, Colleges That Change Lives in 2006.

In 2006, the college attempted to capitalize on J. D. Salinger's brief time there by establishing a "J. D. Salinger Scholarship" which would allow a freshman to study creative writing and live in Salinger's dormitory room for a year. However, the reclusive author's representatives wrote to the college within a week to ask that his name be removed. The college conceded and named it simply the College Creative Writing Award though it is known colloquially as the "Not the J.D. Salinger Scholarship.

Following the death of President Strassburger in 2010, long-time Trustee John E. F. (“Jef”) Corson was appointed Interim President to serve until such time that President Strassburger’s successor could be named.

In 2011, Ursinus was designated as a Top Ten Up and Coming College by U.S. News & World Report.

Dr. Bobby Fong, a graduate of Harvard and UCLA and former president of Butler University, began his tenure as the 13th president of Ursinus on July 1, 2011. Dr. Fong died suddenly of natural causes at his home in Collegeville in 2014. Terry Winegar, the Dean and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, was appointed Interim President.

Brock Blomberg, Dean of the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance at Claremont McKenna College, was named 17th president of Ursinus in 2015. Blomberg announced that he planned to depart Ursinus in September 2021 for the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Robyn Hannigan, former Provost of Clarkson University and patented inventor in the field of medical technology, was named the 19th President of Ursinus College in 2022. Hannigan began her duties on July 1, 2022.

Academics
Students can choose from 60 courses of study. Popular majors at the college are biology, English, psychology, international relations, business and economics, and health and exercise physiology.

Common Intellectual Experience
The Common Intellectual Experience (CIE) is Ursinus' unique seminar course required of all first-year students and is a requisite for the bachelor's degree. It was established in 1999. It is composed of two semester-long seminar courses that help students to figure out their degree path and their path after college. Students read from a range of philosophers and academic thinkers, and discuss them with their classmates.

In September 2012, Ursinus and Columbia University were awarded a joint grant from the Mellon Foundation to work together on the core of their seminar courses – Ursinus College's CIE, and Columbia University's Core Curriculum. The $300,000 grant allowed Ursinus faculty with prior experience teaching CIE classes to work with, and mentor, post-doctoral students at Columbia, created post-doctoral fellowship program at Ursinus, and also supported campus visits and guest lectures from Columbia faculty who have expertise in the subject matter of CIE.

Student life
While the first students enrolled at Ursinus were almost exclusively Pennsylvanians, today the school's 1,500 students come from 35 states and 12 countries. 22% are students of color and 2% are international students. The school ranges from a 11:1 to a 10:1 student-to-faculty ratio.

Greek life
The Ursinus College Greek community consists 12 societies – 5 sororities, 4 fraternities, and 3 gender-inclusive societies. The Ursinus College Inter-Greek Council serves as the elected governing body of all social Greek organizations.

Sororities (women-only)

 * Phi Alpha Psi - the oldest sorority at Ursinus College
 * Sigma Sigma Sigma or Tri Sigma
 * Tau Sigma Gamma
 * Sigma Gamma Rho (Pi Chi Chapter)
 * Delta Phi Epsilon (Zeta Xi Chapter)

Fraternities (men-only)

 * Alpha Phi Epsilon – the oldest active fraternity at Ursinus College
 * Phi Kappa Sigma (Delta Rho Chapter)
 * Pi Omega Delta
 * Sigma Pi (Theta Sigma Chapter)

Gender inclusive societies

 * Alpha Delta Phi Society
 * Delta Pi Sigma fraternity
 * Kappa Delta Kappa sorority (for non-male students)

Clubs and organizations
The Leadership Development and Student Activities Office provides the student body with leadership opportunities through its more than 100 student clubs and organizations. Ursinus College clubs and organizations include student government, community service, academic honor societies, political clubs and intramural sports. Ursinus is also home to a student-run newspaper, The Grizzly – the name taken from the Latin root of Zacharias Ursinus' surname (ursus translating as 'bear') – as well as The Lantern, one of the oldest, continuously produced student literary journals.

Athletics
As of 2019, 40% of Ursinus students competed on one of its athletic teams. Ursinus is a member of the Centennial Conference, founded in 1993, and which now contains eleven private colleges in the mid-Atlantic region, including Bryn Mawr, McDaniel, Johns Hopkins, Dickinson, Haverford, Franklin and Marshall, Swarthmore, Gettysburg, Muhlenberg, and Washington.

In the immediate years following its founding, there were no organized athletics at Ursinus College. Baseball matches held against neighboring towns, hiking along the Perkiomen Creek and in the nearby area that is now Valley Forge National Historical Park, and skating, bathing and boating in the Perkiomen were popular pastimes for students. In fact, students used to be able to rent canoes and fishing rods from the same location where they can now rent bikes. Students then organized a tennis club in 1888, and intercollegiate baseball began with play against Swarthmore College, Haverford College, and Muhlenberg College between 1886 and 1890. The college's first football team was also fielded in 1890 but did not play against another team until 1893 in which they lost 62–0 against Pennsylvania Military College. A field house with shower and locker facilities was first built in 1909, and a "field cage" with facilities for indoor basketball practice was built behind the field house in 1910.

The college was well known for many years for its Patterson Field endzone, in which a large sycamore tree grew undisturbed from the 1920s. Ripley's Believe it or Not featured the famous tree for being the only one on an active field of athletic play. A new sycamore, growing since 1984 from a seedling taken from the old tree, stood nearby until a turf field project required its removal in 2011.

In 1974, the NCAA Award of Valor was presented to the 1973 basketball team. Every member of the team had entered a burning building, with their combined efforts leading to the rescue of 14 persons. In the 2003–2004 season, senior shooting guard Dennis Stanton led all NCAA Men's Basketball scorers, averaging 32.6 points per game.

The Ursinus women's field hockey team has historically been very successful. During the tenure of Eleanor Frost Snell as coach of women's athletics from 1931, the "Snell's Belles" had many winning seasons. More recently they were the 2006 National Champion for NCAA Division III. The team earned spots in the national championship game three times before, between 1975 and 1977, as a Division I program, and the United States Field Hockey Hall of Fame's permanent home is at the college.

Ursinus' women's lacrosse team were the 1986, 1989, and 1990 NCAA Division III Women's lacrosse champions and the 1985, 1987, and 1991 runners-up.

In November 2019, Ursinus College canceled their Women’s and Men’s swim teams after finding that team members violated the college’s anti-hazing policy and student code of conduct. As an additional consequence, Ursinus College placed Men’s and Women’s Swim Team Head Coach Mark Feinberg on probation.

In 2020, the NCAA Division III Committee on Infractions found that a former Ursinus College Vice President and Dean of Enrollment Management improperly awarded financial aid to prospective students based on their participation in athletics and input from coaches. The committee found that approximately $335,300 in financial aid packages was improperly awarded to student-athletes over 17 sports. As a disciplinary measure, the committee publicly reprimanded Ursinus College and placed them on probation while also requiring them to attend the 2020 and 2021 NCAA Regional Rules Seminars. Additionally, Ursinus College self-imposed numerous penalties upon themselves.

Campus and facilities
The 170 acre campus is 25 mi northwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is also within three hours’ driving distance of New York City, Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.

SEPTA bus #93 has six stops (three southeastward, three northwestward) on Ursinus’ Campus. The route extends southeast to Norristown and northwest to Pottstown.

The nearest SEPTA regional rail line is the Manayunk/Norristown Line, which extends southeastward to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The closest station on the Manayunk/Norristown line to Ursinus College is the Norristown Transportation Center, located 8 miles (13km) from Ursinus College.

Notable facilities at Ursinus include:

Bomberger Memorial Hall
Opened in 1892 and renovated in 2006. Bomberger Hall is named for John Bomberger, the first President of Ursinus College. Bomberger Auditorium is home to the Heefner Memorial Organ, a three-manual 62-rank organ dedicated in 1986. It was a gift from Mrs. Lydia V. Heefner in memory of her husband, Russell E. Heefner.

The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art
Dedicated in 1989, located in the original Alumni Memorial Library, built in 1921, expanded in 2010. The museum program is fully accredited by the American Alliance of Museums and houses over 4,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, decorative, and cultural objects representing a broad array of art historical genres.

The Alumni Memorial Library was dedicated to the 271 Ursinus students and alumni who served in WWII including 8 who died in action. It was built upon a former boarding house.

Eger Gateway
An iron and stone gateway erected in 1925, named for George P. Eger, father of alumnus Sherman A. Eger. The gate reads "Ursinus College" and there is a lantern atop it. Tablets inset into the gate's stone columns tell the history of Ursinus College.

Brodbeck-Wilkinson-Curtis Hall
Brodbeck and Curtis Halls opened in 1927. Wilkinson Hall, named for Joseph C. Wilkinson, opened in 1966 connecting Brodbeck and Curtis.

Pfahler Hall & the Walter W. Marstellar Memorial Observatory
Pfahler Hall opened in 1932, renovated and expanded in 1998. Named in honor of Dr. George E. Pfahler. Within this building Professor John Mauchly worked on the ENIAC, the world's first computer. Alumnus and Nobel Laureate Gerald Edelman also attended classes here.

The hall is built on grounds where the first women's dormitory, Olevian Hall, stood from 1865 until 1931.

In the 1950s, alumnus Walter W. Marsteller used military surplus materials and aircraft scrap to build an observatory atop the building. However, it was dismantled in the late 1990s.

The labs are equipped with a 300-MHz nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer, Fourier-transform spectrometers, an isothermal calorimeter, gas chromatography/mass spectrometers, a voltammetric analyzer, UV visible absorbance spectrometers, high performance liquid chromatographs, an atomic absorption spectrometer, a capillary electrophoresis apparatus, a Mössbauer spectrometer, and a fluorescence spectrometer.

Beardwood-Paisley-Stauffer Hall
Opened in 1957, jointly named in honor of Hannah Beardwood and her husband Matthew, a former chemistry professor, Dr. Harry Paisley, former president of the Ursinus board of directors, and Rev. George A. Stauffer.

Thomas Hall
Opened in 1970 and renovated in 1991, it is the home of the Biology and Psychology departments and the following endowed laboratories: Levi Jay Hammond Laboratory of Comparative Anatomy, the W. Wayne Babcock Laboratory of General Biology, the Anna Heinly Schellhammer Laboratory, and the Parlee Laboratory.

Myrin Library
Opened in 1971, renovated in 1988, and again in 2004–2005. The old Freeland-Stine-Derr dormitory complex was demolished in 1968 to make way for the library. Myrin houses more than 420,000 volumes, 202,000 microforms, 32,000 audio-visual materials, 3,800 e-books, and offers on-site and remote access to approximately 25,900 print, microform and electronic periodical titles. The library is also one of only three U.S. Government depositories in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania and, as such, receives print and electronic federal documents for the collection. Myrin Library is home to the Pennsylvania Folklife Society Collection (an extensive Pennsylvania German archive), the Linda Grace Hoyer Papers, the Grundy Collection on South African history, and the college's archives, the Ursinusiana Collection.

Olin Hall
Opened in 1990, named for the F.W. Olin Foundation. Olin Hall contains a 320-seat lecture hall, a 63-seat tiered classroom, a 42-seat tiered classroom, a Writing Center, eight traditional classrooms and four seminar rooms.

Floy Lewis Bakes Center
Dedicated in 2001 upon the expansion and renovation of Helfferich Hall, 1972. The Field House encompasses the D. L. Helfferich Hall of Health and Physical Education and the William Elliott Pool. The field house pavilion opened in 2001, while the other buildings were dedicated in 1972 in honor, respectively, of the ninth president of Ursinus College and Dr. William Elliott. Helfferich Hall now includes completely renovated locker and training rooms, and a two-story, glass-enclosed area for fitness and recreation. The physical education complex serves both men and women with three full-size basketball courts; locker rooms and team rooms; wrestling room; weight room; dance studio; classrooms; a regulation collegiate-sized swimming pool; squash and handball courts, and a gymnastics space.

Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center
The center opened in April 2005 with a performance by jazz musician Wynton Marsalis. Within it is the Lenfest Theater, a 350-seat state-of-the-art proscenium arch theater. There is also a black box "experimental" studio theater, a box office and concession booth, a rehearsal studio, a scenic workshop, as well as teaching support space and a gallery and work space for art students.

Innovation and Discovery Center (IDC)
The $29 million center opened in October 2018. It houses the Parlee Center for Science and the Common Good and the U-Imagine Center for Integrative and Entrepreneurial Studies.

Other Buildings

 * Wismer Center, opened in 1964, named for Ralph Fry Wismer, class of 1905.
 * Reimert Hall, opened in 1966, named for William D. Reimert, class of 1924.
 * Corson Hall, dedicated in 1970.
 * Ritter Center, opened in 1980.
 * Richter-North Residence Hall, opened in 2002, named for former college President Richard P. Richter.
 * New Residence Hall, opened in 2007.

Notable people
Notable people associated with Ursinus College include:
 * John R. Brooke, Union general of American Civil War and Spanish–American War
 * Gerald Edelman, Nobel Prize laureate, alumnus from class of 1950
 * Dan Mullen, former college football coach, analyst for ABC and ESPN
 * J.D. Salinger, writer

title: Ursinus College


text: Category:Computer programming tools

title: Category:Computer programming tools


text:
Lehman Brothers

Lehman Brothers Inc. was an American global financial services firm founded in 1850. Before filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch), with about 25,000 employees worldwide. It was doing business in investment banking, equity, fixed-income and derivatives sales and trading (especially U.S. Treasury securities), research, investment management, private equity, and private banking. Lehman was operational for 158 years from its founding in 1850 until 2008.

On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following the exodus of most of its clients, drastic declines in its stock price, and the devaluation of assets by credit rating agencies. The collapse was largely due to Lehman's involvement in the subprime mortgage crisis and its exposure to less liquid assets. Lehman's bankruptcy filing was the largest in US history, and is thought to have played a major role in the unfolding of the 2007–2008 financial crisis. The market collapse also gave support to the "too big to fail" doctrine.

After Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, global markets immediately plummeted. The following day, major British bank Barclays announced its agreement to purchase, subject to regulatory approval, a significant and controlling interest in Lehman's North American investment-banking and trading divisions, along with its New York headquarters building. On September 20, 2008, a revised version of that agreement was approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge James M. Peck. The next week, Nomura Holdings announced that it would acquire Lehman Brothers' franchise in the Asia–Pacific region, including Japan, Hong Kong and Australia, as well as Lehman Brothers' investment banking and equities businesses in Europe and the Middle East. The deal became effective on October 13, 2008.

Under the Lehman family (1850–1969)
In 1844, 23-year-old Heyum Lehmann, who changed his name to Henry Lehman, the son of a Jewish cattle merchant, emigrated to the United States from Rimpar, Bavaria. He settled in Montgomery, Alabama, where he opened a dry-goods store, "H. Lehman". In 1847, following the arrival of his brother Emanuel Lehman, the firm became "H. Lehman and Bro." With the arrival of their youngest brother, Mayer Lehman, in 1850, the firm changed its name again and "Lehman Brothers" was founded.

During the 1850s, cotton was one of the most important crops in the United States, and was Alabama's highest-grossing cash crop. Until the U.S. Civil War, nearly all U.S. cotton was produced by slave labor, and by the 1860 census, slaves constituted nearly 45% of Alabama's total population. Mayer Lehman was listed as the owner of seven slaves ("three males and four females ranging in age from 5 to 50") in the U.S. Census of 1860.

Capitalizing on cotton's high market value, the three brothers began to routinely accept raw cotton from slave plantations as payment for merchandise, eventually beginning a second business trading in cotton. Within a few years this business grew to become the most significant part of their operation. Following Henry's death from yellow fever in 1855, the remaining brothers continued to focus on their commodities-trading/brokerage operations.

By 1858, the center of cotton trading had shifted from the South to New York City, where factors and commission houses were based. Lehman opened its first branch office at 119 Liberty Street, and 32-year-old Emanuel relocated there to run the office. In 1862, facing difficulties as a result of the Civil War, the firm teamed up with a cotton merchant named John Durr to form Lehman, Durr & Co. Following the war the company helped finance Alabama's reconstruction. The firm's headquarters were eventually moved to New York City, where it helped found the New York Cotton Exchange in 1870, commodifying the crop; Emanuel sat on the board of governors until 1884. The firm also dealt in the emerging market for railroad bonds and entered the financial-advisory business.

Lehman became a member of the Coffee Exchange as early as 1883 and finally the New York Stock Exchange in 1887. In 1899, it underwrote its first public offering, the preferred and common stock of the International Steam Pump Company.

Despite the offering of International Steam, the firm's real shift from being a commodities house to a house of issue did not begin until 1906. In that year, under Emanuel's son Philip Lehman, the firm partnered with Goldman, Sachs & Co., to bring the General Cigar Co. to market, followed closely by Sears, Roebuck and Company. Among these were F.W. Woolworth Company, May Department Stores Company, Gimbel Brothers, Inc., R.H. Macy & Company, The Studebaker Corporation, the B.F. Goodrich Co., and Endicott Johnson Corporation.

Following Philip Lehman's retirement in 1925, his son Robert "Bobbie" Lehman took over as head of the firm. During Bobbie's tenure, the company weathered the capital crisis of the Great Depression by focusing on venture capital while the equities market recovered.

In 1924, John M. Hancock became the first non-family member to join the firm, followed by Monroe C. Gutman and Paul Mazur, who became partners in 1927. By 1928, the firm had moved to its One William Street location.

In the 1930s, Lehman underwrote the initial public offering of the first television manufacturer, DuMont Laboratories, and helped fund the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). It also helped finance the rapidly growing oil industry, including the companies Halliburton and Kerr-McGee. In the 1950s, Lehman underwrote the IPO of Digital Equipment Corporation. Later, it arranged the acquisition of Digital by Compaq.

An evolving partnership (1969–1984)
Robert Lehman died in 1969 after 44 years in a leadership position for the firm, leaving no member of the Lehman family actively involved with the partnership. At the same time, Lehman was facing strong headwinds amidst the difficult economic environment of the early 1970s. By 1972, the firm was facing hard times and in 1973, Pete Peterson, chairman and chief executive officer of the Bell & Howell Corporation, was brought in to save the firm.

Under Peterson's leadership as chairman and CEO, the firm acquired Abraham & Co. in 1975, and two years later merged with Kuhn, Loeb & Co., to form Lehman Brothers, Kuhn, Loeb Inc., the country's fourth-largest investment bank, behind Salomon Brothers, Goldman Sachs and First Boston. Peterson led the firm from significant operating losses to five consecutive years of record profits with a return on equity among the highest in the investment-banking industry.

By the early 1980s, hostilities between the firm's investment bankers and traders prompted Peterson to promote Lewis Glucksman, the firm's President, COO and former trader, to be his co-CEO in May 1983. Glucksman introduced a number of changes that had the effect of increasing tensions, which when coupled with Glucksman's management style and a downturn in the markets, resulted in a power struggle that ousted Peterson and left Glucksman as the sole CEO.

Upset bankers, who had soured over the power struggle, left the company. Stephen A. Schwarzman, chairman of the firm's M&A committee, recalled in a February 2003 interview with Private Equity International that "Lehman Brothers had an extremely competitive internal environment, which ultimately became dysfunctional." The company suffered under the disintegration, and Glucksman was pressured into selling the firm.

Merger with American Express (1984–1994)

Shearson/American Express, an American Express-owned securities company focused on brokerage rather than investment banking, acquired Lehman in 1984, for $360 million. On May 11, the combined firms became Shearson Lehman/American Express.

From 1983 to 1990, Peter A. Cohen was CEO and chairman of Shearson Lehman Brothers, where he led the $1 billion purchase of E.F. Hutton to form Shearson Lehman Hutton. In 1989, Shearson backed F. Ross Johnson's management team in its attempted management buyout of RJR Nabisco, but were ultimately outbid by private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, who was backed by Drexel Burnham Lambert.

Divestment and independence (1994–2008)
In 1993, under newly appointed CEO Harvey Golub, American Express began to divest itself of its banking and brokerage operations. It sold its retail brokerage and asset management operations to Primerica and in 1994 it spun off Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb in an initial public offering, as Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. After being spun off, Dick Fuld became CEO of the company. Fuld steered Lehman through the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, and when the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund collapsed in 1998.

In 2001, the firm acquired the private-client services, or "PCS", business of Cowen & Co. and later, in 2003, aggressively re-entered the asset-management business, which it had exited in 1989. Beginning with $2 billion in assets under management, the firm acquired the Crossroads Group, the fixed-income division of Lincoln Capital Management and Neuberger Berman. These businesses, together with the PCS business and Lehman's private-equity business, comprised the Investment Management Division, which generated approximately $3.1 billion in net revenue.

During the subprime mortgage crisis, Fuld kept his job while CEOs of rivals like Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Citigroup were forced to resign. In addition, Lehman's board of directors, which included retired CEOs like Vodafone's Christopher Gent and IBM's John Akers were reluctant to challenge Fuld as the firm's share price spiraled lower.

In May 2008, prior to going bankrupt, the firm had $639 billion in assets.

Response to September 11, 2001 attacks
On September 11, 2001, Lehman occupied three floors (38-40) of 1 World Trade Center, where one of its employees was killed in the terrorist attacks of that day. Its global headquarters in Three World Financial Center were severely damaged and rendered unusable by falling debris, displacing over 6,500 employees. Trading operations moved to Jersey City, New Jersey. When stock markets reopened on September 17, 2001, Lehman's sales and trading capabilities were restored.

In the ensuing months, the firm spread its operations across New York City in over 40 temporary locations. The investment-banking division converted the first-floor lounges, restaurants, and all 665 guest rooms of the Sheraton Manhattan Hotel into office space.

The bank also experimented with flextime (to share office space) and remote work via virtual private networking after the attacks. In October 2001, Lehman purchased a 32-story, 1050000 sqft office building for a reported sum of $700 million. The building, located at 745 Seventh Avenue, had recently been completed, and not yet occupied, by rival Morgan Stanley. Lehman began moving into the new facility in January and finished in March 2002. The firm did not return to Three World Financial Center as its structural integrity had not been given a clean bill of health, and the company could not have waited for repairs to Three World Financial Center to conclude.

After the attacks, Lehman's management placed increased emphasis on business continuity planning. Aside from its headquarters in Three World Financial Center, Lehman maintained operations-and-backoffice facilities in Jersey City, space that the firm considered leaving prior to 9/11. The space was not only retained, but expanded, including the construction of a backup-trading facility.

June 2003 SEC litigation
In June 2003, the company was one of ten firms which simultaneously entered into a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Office of the New York State Attorney General and various other securities regulators, regarding undue influence over each firm's research analysts by its investment-banking divisions. Regulators alleged that the firms had improperly associated analyst compensation with the firms' investment-banking revenues, and promised favorable, market-moving research coverage, in exchange for underwriting opportunities. The settlement, known as the "global settlement", provided for total financial penalties of $1.4 billion, including $80 million against Lehman, and structural reforms including a complete separation of investment banking departments from research departments, no analyst compensation, directly or indirectly, from investment-banking revenues, and the provision of free, independent, third-party, research to the firms' clients.

Rise of mortgage origination (1997–2006)
Lehman was one of the first Wall Street firms to move into the business of mortgage origination. In 1997, Lehman bought Colorado-based lender, Aurora Loan Services(not a bank), an Alt-A lender. In 2000, to expand their mortgage origination pipeline, Lehman purchased West Coast subprime mortgage lender BNC Mortgage LLC. Lehman quickly became a force in the subprime market. By 2003 Lehman made $18.2 billion in loans and ranked third in lending. By 2004, this number topped $40 billion. By 2006, Aurora and BNC were lending almost $50 billion per month. By 2008, Lehman had assets of $680 billion supported by only $22.5 billion of firm capital. From an equity position, its risky commercial real estate holdings were thirty times greater than capital. In such a highly leveraged structure, a 3 to 5 percent decline in real estate values would wipe out all capital.

Malfeasance
A March 2010 report by the court appointed examiner indicated that Lehman executives regularly used cosmetic accounting gimmicks at the end of each quarter to make its finances appear less shaky than they really were. This practice was a type of repurchase agreement that temporarily removed securities from the company's balance sheet. However, unlike typical repurchase agreements, these deals were described by Lehman as the outright sale of securities and created "a materially misleading picture of the firm's financial condition in late 2007 and 2008".

Subprime mortgage crisis
In August 2007, the firm closed its subprime lender, BNC Mortgage, eliminating 1,200 positions in 23 locations, and took an after-tax charge of $25 million and a $27 million reduction in goodwill. Lehman said that poor market conditions in the mortgage space "necessitated a substantial reduction in its resources and capacity in the subprime space."

In September 2007, Joe Gregory appointed Erin Callan as CFO. On March 16, 2008, after rival Bear Stearns was taken over by JPMorgan Chase in a fire sale, market analysts suggested that Lehman would be the next major investment bank to fall. Callan fielded Lehman's first quarter conference call, where the firm posted a profit of $48.9 million, compared to Citigroup's $5.1 billion and Merrill Lynch's $1.97 billion losses which was Lehman's 55th consecutive profitable quarter. The firm's stock price leapt 46 percent after that announcement.

In 2008, Lehman faced an unprecedented loss to the continuing subprime mortgage crisis. Lehman's loss was a result of having held on to large positions in subprime and other lower-rated mortgage tranches when securitizing the underlying mortgages; it is unclear whether Lehman was simply unable to sell the lower-rated bonds or voluntarily kept them. In any event, huge losses accrued in lower-rated mortgage-backed securities throughout 2008. In the second fiscal quarter, Lehman reported losses of $2.8 billion and was forced to sell off $6 billion in assets. In the first half of 2008 alone, Lehman stock lost 73% of its value as the credit market continued to tighten.

On June 9, 2008, Lehman Brothers announced a US$2.8 billion second-quarter loss, its first since being spun off from American Express, as market volatility rendered many of its hedges ineffective during that time. Lehman also reported that it had raised a further $6 billion in capital. As a result, there was major management shakeup, in which Hugh "Skip" McGee III (head of investment banking) held a meeting with senior staff to strip CEO Richard Fuld and his lieutenants of their authority. Consequently, Joe Gregory agreed to resign as president and COO, and afterward he told Erin Callan that she had to resign as CFO. Callan was appointed CFO of Lehman in 2008 but served only for six months, before departing after her mentor Joe Gregory was demoted. Bart McDade was named to succeed Gregory as president and COO, when several senior executives threatened to leave if he was not promoted. McDade took charge and brought back Michael Gelband and Alex Kirk, who had previously been pushed out of the firm by Gregory for not taking risks. Although Fuld remained CEO, he soon became isolated from McDade's team.

In August 2008, Lehman reported that it intended to release 6% of its work force, 1,500 people, just ahead of its third-quarter-reporting deadline in September. On August 22, 2008, shares in Lehman closed up 5% (16% for the week) on reports that the state-controlled Korea Development Bank was considering buying the bank. Most of those gains were quickly eroded as news came in that Korea Development Bank was "facing difficulties pleasing regulators and attracting partners for the deal."

On September 9, Lehman's shares plunged 45% to $7.79, after it was reported that the state-run South Korean firm had put talks on hold. Investor confidence continued to erode as Lehman's stock lost roughly half its value and pushed the S&P 500 down 3.4% on September 9. The Dow Jones lost 300 points the same day on investors' concerns about the security of the bank. The U.S. government did not announce any plans to assist with any possible financial crisis that emerged at Lehman.

The next day, Lehman announced a loss of $3.9 billion and its intent to sell off a majority stake in its investment-management business, which included Neuberger Berman. The stock slid seven percent that day. Lehman, after earlier rejecting questions on the sale of the company, was reportedly searching for a buyer as its stock price dropped another 40 percent on September 11, 2008.

Just before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, executives at Neuberger Berman sent e-mail memos suggesting, among other things, that the Lehman Brothers' top people forgo multimillion-dollar bonuses to "send a strong message to both employees and investors that management is not shirking accountability for recent performance." Lehman Brothers Investment Management Director George Herbert Walker IV dismissed the proposal, going so far as to actually apologize to other members of the Lehman Brothers executive committee for the idea having been suggested. He wrote, "Sorry team. I am not sure what's in the water at Neuberger Berman. I'm embarrassed and I apologize."

Short-selling allegations
During hearings on the bankruptcy filing by Lehman Brothers and bailout of AIG before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, former Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld said a host of factors including a crisis of confidence and naked short-selling attacks followed by false rumors contributed to both the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. House committee Chairman Henry Waxman said the committee received thousands of pages of internal documents from Lehman and these documents portray a company in which there was "no accountability for failure".

An article by journalist Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone contended that naked short selling contributed to the demise of both Lehman and Bear Stearns. A study by finance researchers at the University of Oklahoma Price College of Business studied trading in financial stocks, including Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, and found "no evidence that stock price declines were caused by naked short selling".

Bankruptcy
On Saturday, September 13, 2008, Timothy F. Geithner, then the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, called a meeting on the future of Lehman, which included the possibility of an emergency liquidation of its assets. Lehman reported that it had been in talks with Bank of America and Barclays for the company's possible sale; however, both Barclays and Bank of America ultimately declined to purchase the entire company, in the former case because the British government (in particular, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Alastair Darling and the CEO of the Financial Services Authority Hector Sants) refused to allow the transaction at the last minute, quoting stockholder regulations in the UK, despite a deal having apparently been completed.

The next day, Sunday, September 14, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) offered an exceptional trading session to allow market participants to offset positions in various derivatives on the condition of a Lehman bankruptcy later that day. Although the bankruptcy filing missed the deadline, many dealers honored the trades they made in the special session.

Shortly before 1 am Monday morning (UTC−5), Lehman Brothers Holdings announced it would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection citing bank debt of $613 billion, $155 billion in bond debt, and assets worth $639 billion. It further announced that its subsidiaries would continue to operate as normal. A group of Wall Street firms agreed to provide capital and financial assistance for the bank's orderly liquidation and the Federal Reserve, in turn, agreed to a swap of lower-quality assets in exchange for loans and other assistance from the government. The morning witnessed scenes of Lehman employees removing files, items with the company logo, and other belongings from the world headquarters at 745 Seventh Avenue. The spectacle continued throughout the day and into the following day.

Brian Marsal, co-chief executive of the restructuring firm Alvarez and Marsal was appointed as chief restructuring officer and subsequently chief executive officer of the company.

Later that day, the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) suspended Lehman's Australian subsidiary as a market participant after clearing-houses terminated contracts with the firm. Lehman shares tumbled over 90% on September 15, 2008. The Dow Jones closed down just over 500 points on September 15, 2008, which was at the time the largest drop in a single day since the days following the attacks on September 11, 2001.

In the United Kingdom, the investment bank went to administration with PricewaterhouseCoopers appointed as administrators. In Japan, the Japanese branch, Lehman Brothers Japan Inc., and its holding company filed for civil reorganization on September 16, 2008, in Tokyo District Court. On September 17, 2008, the New York Stock Exchange delisted Lehman Brothers.

On March 16, 2011 some three years after filing for bankruptcy and following a filing in a Manhattan U.S. bankruptcy court, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc announced it would seek creditor approval of its reorganization plan by October 14 followed by a confirmation hearing to follow on November 17.

Barclays acquisition
On September 16, 2008, Barclays PLC announced that they would acquire a "stripped clean" portion of Lehman for $1.75 billion, including most of Lehman's North America operations. On September 20, 2008, a revised version of the deal, a $1.35 billion (£700 million) plan for Barclays to acquire the core business of Lehman (mainly its $960-million headquarters, a 38-story office building in Midtown Manhattan, with responsibility for 9,000 former employees), was approved. After a 7-hour hearing, U.S. bankruptcy judge James Peck ruled: "'I have to approve this transaction because it is the only available transaction. Lehman Brothers became a victim, in effect the only true icon to fall in a tsunami that has befallen the credit markets. This is the most momentous bankruptcy hearing I've ever sat through. It can never be deemed precedent for future cases. It's hard for me to imagine a similar emergency.'"

Luc Despins, then a partner at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, the creditors committee counsel, said: "The reason we're not objecting is really based on the lack of a viable alternative. We did not support the transaction because there had not been enough time to properly review it." In the amended agreement, Barclays would absorb $47.4 billion in securities and assume $45.5 billion in trading liabilities. Lehman's attorney Harvey R. Miller of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, said "the purchase price for the real estate components of the deal would be $1.29 billion, including $960 million for Lehman's New York headquarters and $330 million for two New Jersey data centers. Lehman's original estimate valued its headquarters at $1.02 billion but an appraisal from CB Richard Ellis this week valued it at $900 million." Barclays were not to acquire Lehman's Eagle Energy unit, but to have entities known as Lehman Brothers Canada Inc, Lehman Brothers Sudamerica, Lehman Brothers Uruguay and its Private Investment Management business for high-net-worth individuals. Finally, Lehman would retain $20 billion of securities assets in Lehman Brothers Inc that are not being transferred to Barclays. Barclays acquired a potential liability of $2.5 billion to be paid as severance, if it chooses not to retain some Lehman employees beyond the guaranteed 90 days.

Nomura acquisition
Nomura Holdings, Japan's top brokerage firm, agreed to buy the Asian division of Lehman Brothers for $225 million and parts of the European division for a nominal fee of $2. It would not take on any trading assets or liabilities in the European units. Nomura negotiated such a low price because it acquired only Lehman's employees in the regions, and not its stocks, bonds or other assets. The last Lehman Brothers Annual Report identified that these non-US subsidiaries of Lehman Brothers were responsible for over 50% of global revenue produced.

Sale of asset management businesses
On September 29, 2008, Lehman agreed to sell Neuberger Berman, part of its investment management business, to a pair of private-equity firms, Bain Capital Partners and Hellman & Friedman, for $2.15 billion. The transaction was expected to close in early 2009, subject to approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, but a competing bid was entered by the firm's management, who ultimately prevailed in a bankruptcy auction on December 3, 2008. Creditors of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. retain a 49% common equity interest in the firm, now known as Neuberger Berman Group LLC. In Europe, the Quantitative Asset Management Business has been acquired back by its employees on November 13, 2008 and has been renamed back to TOBAM.

Financial fallout
Lehman's bankruptcy was the largest failure of an investment bank since Drexel Burnham Lambert collapsed in 1990 amid fraud allegations. Immediately following the bankruptcy filing, an already distressed financial market began a period of extreme volatility, during which the Dow experienced its largest one day point loss, largest intra-day range (more than 1,000 points) and largest daily point gain. What followed was what many have called the "perfect storm" of economic distress factors and eventually a $700bn bailout package (Troubled Asset Relief Program) prepared by Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, and approved by Congress. The Dow eventually closed at a new six-year low of 7,552.29 on November 20, followed by a further drop to 6626 by March of the next year.

The fall of Lehman also had a strong effect on small private investors such as bond holders and holders of so-called minibonds. In Germany, structured products, often based on an index, were sold mostly to private investors, elderly, retired persons, students and families. Most of those now worthless derivatives were sold by the German arm of Citigroup, the German Citibank now owned by Crédit Mutuel.

Ongoing litigation
On March 11, 2010, Anton R. Valukas, a court-appointed examiner, published the results of its year-long investigation into the finances of Lehman Brothers. This report revealed that Lehman Brothers used an accounting procedure termed repo 105 to temporarily exchange $50 billion of assets into cash just before publishing its financial statements. The action could be seen to implicate both Ernst & Young, the bank's accountancy firm and Richard S. Fuld, Jr, the former CEO. This could potentially lead to Ernst & Young being found guilty of financial malpractice and Fuld facing time in prison. According to The Wall Street Journal, in March 2011, the SEC announced that they weren't confident that they could prove that Lehman Brothers violated US laws in its accounting practices.

In October 2011, the administrators of Lehman Brothers Holding Inc. lost their appeal to overturn a court order forcing them to pay £148 million into their underfunded pensions plan.

As of January 2016, Lehman paid more than $105 billion to its unsecured creditors. In addition, JPMorgan will pay $1.42 billion in cash to settle a lawsuit accusing JPMorgan of draining Lehman Brothers liquidity right before the crash. The settlement would permit another $1.496 billion to be paid to creditors and a separate $76 million deposit.

The brokerage unit of Lehman Brothers completed its liquidation process on September 28, 2022, after paying out over $115 billion to its customers and creditors over the course of 14 years. As of December 2022, Lehman's British operations were being administrated by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which expected to complete the administration process no earlier than 2025.

Merger and acquisition history
The following is an illustration of the company's major mergers and acquisitions and historical predecessors (this is not a comprehensive list):

Former officers

 * Richard S. Fuld Jr.
 * Scott J. Freidheim
 * Rodger Krouse (born 1961)
 * Jack Langer (born 1948/1949), basketball player and investment banker
 * Bart McDade
 * Hugh McGee
 * George Herbert Walker IV
 * Frederick M. Warburg
 * Joseph Rosenberg

In popular culture
The events of the weekend leading up to Lehman's bankruptcy are dramatized in the 2009 BBC television film The Last Days of Lehman Brothers.

In the 2010 animated film Despicable Me, the main character Gru visits the Bank of Evil, which funds all evil plots for villains around the world and has a sign reading "Formerly Lehman Brothers".

The 2011 drama film Margin Call focuses on the events of a 24-hour period at a large investment bank based on an amalgam of investment banks, drawing heavily from the culture of Lehman Brothers. However, the events in the film are primarily a depiction of the actions of Goldman Sachs.

The 2011 HBO film Too Big to Fail recounts the days before Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy and the fallout afterward.

The 2011 film Horrible Bosses features a character by the name of Kenny Sommerfield (played by P. J. Byrne) who worked at Lehman Brothers until its bankruptcy, ending up broke.

The fall of Lehman Brothers is depicted in the 2015 film The Big Short, where two of the characters walk around the Lehman Brothers offices after the bankruptcy to see the main trading floor.

In Imbolo Mbue's 2016 debut novel Behold the Dreamers, an immigrant from Cameroon is a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, an executive at Lehman Brothers.

In the 2016 animated film Zootopia, there is a brief appearance of a bank called Lemming Brothers, which is staffed by lemmings.

The Lehman Trilogy is a three-act play by Italian dramatist Stefano Massini about the history of the Lehman Brothers.

In the 2019 Showtime comedy series Black Monday, a fictionalized version of Lehman Brothers with an altered spelling is central to the plot and represented by brothers Larry & Lenny Leighman.

Principal locations (first year of occupancy)
* Henry Lehman established his first store location on Commerce Street, in Montgomery, in 1845. In 1848, one year after Emanuel's arrival, the brothers moved "H. Lehman & Bro." to 17 Court Square, where it remained when Mayer arrived in 1850, forming "Lehman Brothers".
 * 17 Court Square, Montgomery, Alabama (1847)*
 * 119 Liberty Street, New York, NY (1858)
 * 176 Fulton Street, New York, NY (1865–1866?)
 * 133–35 Pearl Street, New York, NY (1867)
 * 40 Exchange Place, New York, NY (1876)
 * 16 William Street, New York, NY (1892)
 * One William Street, New York, NY (1928) **
 * 55 Water Street (1980) ***
 * 3 World Financial Center (1985)
 * 745 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY (2002)

** Designated as a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Committee in 1996.

*** Sales and trading personnel had been in this location since 1977; they were joined by the firm's investment bankers and brokers in 1980.

title: Lehman Brothers


text: Category:Automation

title: Category:Automation