some fun numbers from the Barclays/Lehman deal

Barclays to buy Lehman banking divisions for $250M
By JOE BEL BRUNO and STEPHEN BERNARD, AP Business Writers
16 Sep 2008
NEW YORK - Two days after walking away from a deal to purchase all of Lehman Brothers, Barclays PLC said Tuesday it had agreed to acquire Lehman's North American investment banking and capital markets businesses for $250 million in cash.

The British bank will also purchase Lehman's New York headquarters and its two data centers in New Jersey for $1.5 billion.

Did you catch that?
Barclays valued Lehman's physical assets (NY headquarters & NJ data centers) at six (6) times the worth of the core business ...

If I'd been quicker, I could probably have put together a small consortium of my friends and neighbors to buy the banking business for $250Mn! (Most of my friends and neighbors have pretty good credit... unlike the erstwhile financial giants of Wall Street!)

Stop the madness!