WITH administrators and liquidators picking over corporate carcasses around the country and consigning thousands to the dole queue, step forward the annual Insolvency and Rescue Awards.
Seriously. This year's bash is a “glamorous gala celebration” at the Grosvenor House, where tables for the evening next month can be had for the small matter of £2500.

* LEHMAN employed around 4000 people in the City. Staff at the US bank earned an average of about $330,000. Theoretical loss to the London economy? How does $1.32 billion — or £735 million — sound?

* THEY never had a chance. Who opened Lehman's new headquarters in Canary Wharf in 2003? Only Gordon Brown.

* WHAT'S this on Lehman's books? Only the spectacular Gary Player-designed £100 million Gassin Golf Country Club on the Cote D'Azur, complete with views over the rooftops of St Tropez...

* WHEN administrator Tony Lomas and his teams of administrators survey Lehman's offices they must be looking at a scene of devastation. The place has been gutted — judging by the memorabilia available on eBay.
But alongside the polo shirts and coffee mugs for sale is a more unusual lot: a Lehman emergency evacuation kit, including gas mask and goggles imprinted with its logo. Another item under the hammer is a desk cube, featuring the bank's Operating Principles as a reminder to staff.
Perhaps Dick Fuld should have paid just a little more attention: the dictums include “demonstrating smart risk management” and “maximising shareholder value”.

* SINCE the name Lehman hit the wider public consciousness a few days ago, a lively debate has blown up over its pronunciation.
Is it “Layman”, as most City folk have called it for years, or “Leeman”, as the BBC has been referring to the bank in its news reports? Neither, asserts one droll wag in the Square Mile: it's pronounced dead.

Losing out on Ritzy address

LEHMAN'S demise could have a dramatic effect on a prime piece of real estate in the heart of Piccadilly. The building is Devonshire House, home to Bain Capital and Boston Consulting Group, opposite the Ritz.
It was bought last year at the height of the property boom for £280 million. Add in agents' fees and other sundries and the final bill was just north of £300 million. The purchaser was a firm called Witkoff, but Lehman supplied the funds.
According to chat in the property industry, even before the bank went into meltdown, Lehman was hawking the equity in Devonshire House. The loss is expected to be considerable...

* KEEP an eye, too, on another City development: the old Legal & General building near the Mansion House, which is due for a rebuild. Spain's Metrovacesa — which paid top whack for the HSBC building in Canary Wharf — has bought the site from L&G. The full £240 million is due by end-October. Meanwhile, Metrovacesa is busy trying to refinance £810 million of debt used to buy the HSBC tower by November...

Why AIG cynics favour Celine

ADVICE for Bob Willumstad, CEO of embattled AIG, in the current Insurance Insider magazine. A profile urges him to ignore cynics who suggest that his theme song should be Celine Dion's Titanic anthem My Heart Will Go On and choose something “breezily optimistic” such as the Dead Kennedys' Holiday in Cambodia..

* THE opposite of a vote of confidence for Debenhams, from retail guru Nick Bubb of Pali International. After a fair-enough trading update from Debs yesterday, Bubb writes to clients: “The shares had gone through our 45p price target, but we are now cutting that to 40p given the risk in Debenhams' financial position. Debs remains a relatively weak brand in a weak market with a weak balance sheet. We maintain a Sell and would be selling into the rally.” He's full of cheer is that Bubb.

* HAS the FT's Lex column invested in a new sub-editor? This week has seen jokes, yes jokes, in the headlines. One was “AIGony”, another “Through the Thain barrier”. Puns? At the FT? Don't they know there's a crisis on?

Hard times for top brass at Goldmine

THE heart bleeds. Staff at Goldman Sachs have been warned their compensation is being cut by 51% in the latest quarter because of the credit crunch. Hmmm. But how much will some of them really suffer?
According to the 2007 Goldman Sachs International annual report, the board, which includes Michael Sherwood, Richard Gnodde and Peter Sutherland, saw directors' total compensation rocket to $47.7 million — an increase of almost 90% on 2006, although much of that went to one unnamed member of the board who pocketed $23.3 million.
However, by City Spy's reckoning, if the 2008 compensation for the board is cut in half — in line with the rest of their colleagues — their pay will merely slide back to 2006 levels. Hardly a great hardship, then.

* A TALE of two countries: America's investment banking landscape is being dramatically redrawn this week, but cast your mind back to January, when it was France's Société Génerale that looked precarious after the Jerome Kerviel rogue trader scandal.
But how is SocGen doing now? A mole reports the bank is doing fine and, unexpectedly, it has made very few redundancies because of the credit crunch. The word is that bonuses may be down by around a third next year but otherwise it's virtually business as usual (even if major job cuts do become inevitable in a recession).
The reason is straightforward: the French Government stood foursquare behind SocGen and the bank got a big rights issue away to cover the losses in February (that would be a lot harder in today's climate). It's the French way — to be different.

* ONE canny cybergeek is seeking to profit from the banking sector turmoil, selling the domain name www.merrilllynched.com. Yours for just $1000, it comes complete with a fresh take on the bank's logo: the Merrill bull has a noose around its neck.