Lehman Brothers
Lehman's steady but sure approach in CDOs and CDS is paying dividends
| Jim Ballentine |
Jim Ballentine, Lehman Brother's global head of structured credit, told Euromoney last year: "In certain respects people are getting ahead of themselves, looking at structured products because they are structured products, rather than focusing on the value that these products are adding." He looks smart now.
Lehman Brothers has been one of the more conservative credit derivatives houses. It has focused on doing the right things for its credit derivatives clients. If that has meant missing out on a few extra cents per share over the years, so be it. And it has protected the bank from the reputational risk that the likes of Barclays Capital and Bank of America have run selling synthetic structured credit products. Lehman Brothers' refusal to get ahead of itself is one of the reasons that it is our credit derivatives house of the year.
That's not to say that Lehman can't handle complicated products. There is more to its credit derivatives capability than flow CDS business.