The liquidation of Lehman Brothers’ brokerage unit has ended, 14 years and 13 days after its parent’s bankruptcy helped trigger a market freefall and global financial crisis, Reuters reported. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman in Manhattan closed the brokerage’s estate yesterday and awarded final payments to the trustee who oversaw its liquidation and his law firm. More than $115 billion was paid out. Lehman’s 111,000 customers received all $106 billion they were owed, and secured creditors also received full payouts. Unsecured creditors recovered $9.4 billion, or about 41 cents on the dollar. They were originally expected to recover about 20 cents on the dollar. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the brokerage’s parent, had been Wall Street’s fourth-largest investment bank before filing what remains by far the largest U.S. bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008.
