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The man blamed for the collapse of Lehman Brothers is back: power lunching on Wall Street, promoting his own consultancy firm and complaining that he has been made a scapegoat.
Dick Fuld, former chief executive and chairman of the once mighty investment bank, has spoken out for the first time since Lehman went under.
In an interview in America as the first anniversary of the firm's bankruptcy on 15 September approaches, Fuld said the world is not yet ready to hear his side of the story.
“I've been pummelled, I've been dumped on, and it's all going to happen again. I can handle it,” he said. “You know what, let them line up.”
Critics say it was Fuld's autocratic, perhaps bullying, style that was at least partly responsible for Lehman's demise.
Lawrence McDonald, a former Lehman trader whose book about the saga, A Colossal Failure Of Common
Sense, has caused a splash said: “Fuld has a bunker mentality. He blamed the markets, blamed the short-sellers. The truth is, qualified people warned him several times and he wouldn't listen.
“Other than six or seven people, no one really knew him. In my four years there, he never came down to the trading floor. Not once.”
Tracked down to his country house in Ketchun Idaho, Fuld denied this version of events. “What, do people think I'm an idiot, that suddenly I woke up two months before and suddenly things were a problem? No. No, the signs were there,” he said.
Fuld, 63, who called McDonald's book “absolutely slanderous”, had been at Lehman since the 1960s, taking charge in 1994 and turning it into the fourth-largest US investment bank.
In recent years it specialised in the mortgage industry that turned out to be the source of so much trouble.
He has recently started a consultancy named Matrix Advisors, which he runs from an office on New York's Third Avenue. And he has been seen at breakfasts and lunches with former colleagues at top restaurants in New York and Greenwich. He used to insist on facing the restaurant door.
Lately, he's been seen facing the wall. “They're looking for someone to dump on right now, and that's me,”
Fuld lamented. “You know what they say? This too shall pass.'”
Lehman filed the biggest bankruptcy in US history as it choked under souring assets. The American government decided, controversially, not to come up with a rescue package.
Fuld has since been named in nearly 40 legal actions, mostly filed by cities and pension funds that claim he and other Lehman executives led them into bad investments.
But the erstwhile “Gorilla of Wall Street” insisted that not everyone has turned against him. “You know what, my mother loves me,” he said. “My family loves me and I've got a few close friends who understand what happened — and that's all I need.”
Reader views (6)
Dick,
You are a leech of the greatest order. You and your kind are wholly responsible for the state that the world now finds itself in.
Let nobody be under any illusion that the world is run by politicians. It is run by people like Fuld and their actions and omissions influence whether the human race succeeds or fails.
- Paul Craythorne, Birmingham England
Been made a scapegoat? yes you have. And do you know why? because you presided over the failure of the company, therefore its your fault. end of story. How can this guy think he's being victimised in any way?!
- Mr Opinion, london
Of course he's back! Only in America, and the UK can people like him operate, with the connivance of politicians, and minor officials, in the authorities, I remember a few in the sixties, that came back in the 70's and 80's giving advice in the national newspapers, on shares and investments, no wonder this country in in the poo.
- Baz Bazzan, London UK
We're all ears, Dick. What happened then?
- Bloke, Lambeth
"What, do people think I'm an idiot[?]"
Yes Dick, we do.
- St, London
Ahh Bless, poor little guy. Wake up, Dick. You ballooned a 2nd tier 150 year old investment bank into the 4th biggest bank in the world in 15 years and now it doesn't exist. Not your fault? Sounds like a classic case of a Napoleon complex, Dick.
- Alex C, London
