Tag Archives: entrepreneur

Investment banks have financed themselves for the good times rather than bad. So they depend excessively on short-term funding and high leverage. While this might have generated high returns in good times (supporting large payouts for employees and shareholders), in bad times this kind of capital structure has come back to haunt the firms. Given Lehman’s collapse, the only choice for the remaining investment banks might just be acquisition by commercial banks with large, stable deposit bases. 2008 has seen it happen with Bear Sterns-J.P.Morgan, Merrill Lynch-Bank of America and now with Lehman Brothers-Barclays. All three deals create universal banks that are better positioned to weather market turmoil. Will this be the way for Morgan and Goldman? Or will they change their strategies to actually weather the storm of the credit crunch?

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