Curse me, Beat Me, Make Me Write Bad Cheques: Lehman chief accepts blame

Dickie Fuld, Lehman Brothers’ CEO and BSD, took personal responsibility on Monday for the investment bank’s embarrassing $2.8bn second-quarter loss, the first in its 14-year history as a public company, and said he remained confident in its future prospects as an independent entity.

“This is my responsibility,” Fuld said during a rare appearance on a conference call to discuss quarterly earnings. “We made active decisions to deploy our capital, some of which in hindsight were poor choices because we really didn’t act quickly enough to the eroding environment.”

Fuld also rejected arguments that Lehman’s earnings power had been permanently eroded by the evaporation of significant fixed-income revenues, especially in mortgage-related products, and by the bank’s decision to reduce dramatically its reliance on borrowed money to boost profits.

“Our core business and our strategy are sound,” Fuld said. He added that Lehman had made enough inroads in equities, merger advisory, asset management and other areas, as well as broadened its reach in Asia and Europe, to make up for much of the fixed-income declines.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/50a84d4c-3b99-11dd-9cb2-0000779fd2ac.html