On Sunday it is ten years since the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers.
The day before that happened, the boss of the oil fund rushed in 60 employees and managed to prevent a billion loss.
To Aftenposten newspaper, Yngve Slyngstad, the head of the Government Pension Fund Global (“the Oil Fund”), told how he collected 60 employees on Sunday, September 14, 2008.
“I have reason to believe that Lehman Brothers will be bankrupt tomorrow.
We start to work as if it will happen. It’s too late to wait until tomorrow,’’ he told the employees at the time.
According to E24 newspaper, NOK 100 billion was at stake.
“We actually ended up paying NOK 3.4 billion to the bankruptcy estate a year later because we had sold the security and when we took the counterparts, we ended up blaming Lehman’s money,” Slyngstad said.
The investment bank Lehman Brother went bankrupt on 15 September 2008.This led to the collapse of the financial sector and it became difficult to gain access to capital for both banks and businesses.These were among the triggering causes of the financial crisis.
© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today
