It appears that Barclays is acquiring Lehman Brothers.
The AP is reporting this story.
It appears that yet another American financial institution is being acquired by a foreign entity; in this case, Barclays is acquiring Lehman Brothers:
NEW YORK - British bank Barclays PLC intends to unveil a plan to acquire all or part of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s investment banking and trading operations, a person close to the talks said Tuesday.
While on one hand, I am relieved for the folks who stood to lose money due to Lehman related losses, it is somewhat disturbing to see another bit of the US financial market move oversees.
Furthermore, I hope that this is not spun by the right as reason why the free market works just fine, and that we need even less regulation, not more. This whole crisis was brought about by the erosion of the Glass-Steagall Act.
Sorry about the succinctness of this diary; however, with all the discussion about what is happening in the markets and what will happen, I felt this to be germane.
Update: It has been pointed out that there is some ambiguity about whether Barclays will pick up all or a portion of Lehman Brothers. The original AP article is ambiguous somewhat ambiguous. Another report indicates that the deal "would reportedly pay just under $2 billion for the company's investment banking and trading operations and its Midtown Manhattan headquarters."