Any hope of a quick firesale of Lehman Brother's assets was dashed last night when the administrator in charge of winding down the bank said there was no mad rush to secure any deals. Nor was it clear what, if anything, could be salvaged from America's biggest bankruptcy to date.

Bankers at rival institutions in London said that apart from Lehman's asset management business, which was excluded from the bankruptcy filing and is for sale, it was debatable whether any of the bank's sales and trading or investment banking operations could be saved.

One banker, whose office overlooks Lehman's European headquarters in Canary Wharf, said that staff had been turned away all day and all that was visible in the bank's offices was an army of workers packing up computers and carrying out expensive gym equipment. He said: “It is literally a liquidation of everything in Europe, machine by machine, desk by desk.”

PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is handling the administration in London, sought to allay fears that the company was disintegrating by the second and said any value in the business units would hopefully be extracted over time.

Dan Schwarzmann, one of the administrators, said: “We are assuring any subsidiaries that are solvent and have cash that they can continue to trade.” However he added that the main element was asset management, the part of the business that included Lehman's Neuberger Berman asset manager and its private equity and property investments, which are already up for grabs.

Mr Schwarmann said: “Some of those people will want to continue in the employment of the company for many months to come. For others, their tenure will be shorter than that. Some activities will not be continuing - sales, for example.”

Lehman's business both in America and in Europe was broadly divided into asset management, capital markets (sales and trading of stocks and bonds) and investment banking, which included debt and equity underwriting and mergers and acquisitions advisory teams. Assuming the sales and trading divisions are wound down, as PWC suggests, it leaves Lehman's investment banking unit as the only business of any worth to prospective buyers - potentially as an M&A advisory boutique once the underwriting business is closed.

But that assumes that the bank's clients - which underpin the fortunes of any investment bank - are prepared sit it out. And that is a big if. Particularly as rival bankers would have jumped on the telephone first thing yesterday to poach them.

Certainly, a bank such as Barclays, which had considered an acquisition of all of Lehman but decided it was too risky, might consider boosting its own advisory arm should the business become available.

Yet hopes that entire teams could be sold en masse to rival banks seemed a long shot last night after reports of wholesale sackings across all of Lehman's divisions. Another banker said: “There are no teams left. They are free to go and peddle their wares elsewhere, but there is no value left if there are no clients.”

The creditors’ list

Lehman’s ten largest unsecured creditors’ claims, as listed in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing

$463 million Aozora Bank (Japan)

$289 million Mizuho (Japan)

$275 million Citibank (Hong Kong)

$250 million BNP Paribas (France)

$231 million Shinsei Bank (Japan)

$185 million UFJ Bank (Japan)

$177 million Sumitomo Mitsubishi Bank (Japan)

$140 million Svenska Handelsbanken (Sweden)

$100 million KBC Bank (Belgium)

$93 million Mizuho Corporate Bank (Japan)

Largest UK creditors

$77 million Standard Chartered

$75 million Lloyds Bank

Source: Reuters

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