【明報專訊】On 15 September 2008 Lehman Brothers (雷曼兄弟), then one of the largest investment banks in the US, filed for bankruptcy protection. One of the most dramatic events in the financial history, it marked the height of the Great Recession, whose repercussions are still being felt today.

1. Lehman Brothers - A brief history

Lehman Brothers was originally a dried goods store set up in the 1800s. Following a string of acquisitions (收購) and mergers (合併), the bank gradually became the fourth-largest investment bank in the US (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch).

2. The subprime mortgage crisis

Lehman Brothers' demise was directly related to the subprime mortgage crisis (次按危機). "Subprime mortgages" are mortgages taken out by people who may have difficulty maintaining their repayment schedules owing to unemployment, divorce, medical emergencies, etc. Since the US government had been encouraging home ownership, subprime lending became prevalent (普遍), meaning that more and more people were buying houses they might not be able to afford. Those mortgages were repackaged into investment products such as mortgage-backed securities (MBS, 按揭抵押證券).

When US home prices declined steeply in mid-2006 after they had peaked, it became more and more difficult for borrowers to refinance their loans. Mortgage delinquencies (按揭拖欠) soared. Lehman Brothers had invested heavily in housing-related assets. When the property market collapsed and more and more house owners defaulted on their mortgages, those assets became much less valuable. Lehman Brothers' stock price took a nosedive. In the first half of 2008, Lehman stock lost 73% of its value.

3. Filing for bankruptcy

Lehman Brothers officially filed for bankruptcy protection on 15 September 2008. It remains the largest bankruptcy filing in US history. News of Lehman Brother's failure sent shockwaves across financial markets worldwide. Many in the banking industry thought the US government had no choice but to bail Lehman Brothers out (助…脫困) because it was "too big to fail". However, while the US government had saved AIG (美國國際集團), whose operations were more diversified than Lehman Brothers', it simply let Lehman Brothers fail. Lehman's North American investment-banking and trading divisions along with its New York headquarters building were acquired by Barclays (巴克萊銀行), while its franchise in the Asia-Pacific region (including Japan, Hong Kong and Australia) as well as its investment banking and equities businesses in Europe and the Middle East were purchased by Nomura Holdings (野村控股公司).

4. The Great Recession

and the stimulus package

The subprime mortgage crisis, which culminated (達到高峰) in the fall of Lehman Brothers, plunged the American economy into an abyss (深淵). The crisis, now called the Great Recession, happened in 2008, a US election year. That gave Democratic candidate Barack Obama an edge over his Republican rival, who blundered by saying, "The fundamentals of the economy are strong." No sooner had Obama been sworn in as president than he unveiled an economic stimulus package, named "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009", to give fresh impetus (推進力) to the economy. The cost of the package was estimated to be US$787 billion when it went through Congress. It was later revised to US$831 billion between 2009 and 2019.

Not only did the Great Recession play havoc with the US economy, but it also dealt a huge blow to the global economy. To prop up the economy, the Chinese government unveiled a four-trillion-yuan stimulus package.