At least 700 investment banking jobs at Lehman Brothers in Europe appeared to be safe last night as Barclays and Nomura tabled their final offers to buy large swaths of the collapsed American investment bank.

Hundreds more of Lehman’s back-office and support staff could also find themselves new employers within the next 24 hours as the two banks submitted formal proposals to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the administrator for the bank in Britain and continental Europe.

Lehman employs about 1,500 staff in the cash equities business and the mergers and acquisitions advisory unit. The vast majority of them are based in Canary Wharf in East London, but there are also offices across the Continent and in the Middle East.

The two banks appeared to be neck and neck in the race for Lehman assets last night. Dan Schwarzmann, one of four PwC partners in charge of selling Lehman businesses, told The Times yesterday: “We have asked a number of parties for final offers. These are coming in today.”

Mr Schwarzmann, who noted that commitments on Lehman jobs would be central to a winning bid, said that PwC was hoping to choose an exclusive bidder, possibly as early as last night. Neither Barclays nor Nomura is interested in the asset management unit, which is also up for sale. Barclays and Nomura declined to comment on their bids.

It is understood that PwC will question the bonus pledge, which is understood to be payable from existing Lehman funds. The administrator also plans to query the transfer of $8 billion (£4.4 billion) of funds from Lehman in London to the bank in the United States. PwC declined to comment.

Gordon Brown said at the weekend that he was pushing the US to help to return the $8 billion to the bank’s UK unit. “We are asking and working with the American Government to get that money back to pay salaries, not of highflying financiers, but of cleaners and people who are computer operators who would otherwise be denied their money,” the Prime Minister told the Labour Party conference.

Mr Schwarzmann said that it was crucial to identify a preferred bidder quickly, but he acknowledged that “dotting i’s and crossing t’s” could delay a final decision until tomorrow. PwC was evaluating prospective proposals from other interested parties yesterday, but Barclays and Nomura were understood to be the clear front-runners. Six bidders initially expressed an interest. Speculation mounted over the weekend that BNP Paribas, the French bank, was circling, but it is understood not to be involved.

Sources said that Barclays had committed to retain all of Lehman’s frontline banking staff and was prepared to consider taking on several hundred administrative workers. One source said: “If a Barclays deal is done, it would save north of 700, possibly 800 client-facing staff, with the potential for more than 1,000, all included.” Nomura, which has guaranteed to take all of Lehman’s equities research, sales and trading staff, as well as its team of corporate financiers, is also interested in trading and IT systems.

Last week Barclays paid $1.75 billion to buy Lehman’s North American investment banking and capital markets business. It emerged over the weekend that Barclays had agreed to pay $2.5 billion in bonuses to Lehman bankers in the United States in a move that has angered stricken staff in London.

Barclays is understood to be vying with Nomura, as well as Standard Chartered, for Lehman’s Asian operations.

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