Making cents of Lehman's collapse (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Making cents of Lehman's collapse

7:39pm Monday 22nd September 2008 in An Editor's View By An Editor's View

I think I can shed some light on the demise of Lehman Brothers.

Newsquest, the company that owns the Gazette, some years ago had a sharesave scheme, by which employees could put a few pounds away a month to buy shares.

I took part and, at the end of the year when the scheme ended, promptly sold my shares and spent some of the money on drink, food and computer games. The rest I frittered away.

The sale was handled by Lehman Brothers in New York (Newsquest is owned by the American firm Gannett) and as part of the transaction I had a Lehman trading account opened for me. After it was concluded for some reason I had 14 cents left in my account.

That was about six years ago and every quarter I received a letter from Lehman in New Yor in a nice embossed envelope, telling me that my account was still 14c to the good.

I tried e-mailing them to close the account but my contact was ignored.

I estimate it must have cost the thick end fo a fiver to generate and post each letter (although if Nationwide can charge me £20 to send me one from Swindon it could be a lot more).

I can't believe I was the only one in the same situation so it was no surprise to me that the money ran out.

More importantly that's 14c I won't see again either...