RHB Economics Research said the highest recorded CDS spread was in October 2008 at 491 basis points, following the Lehman Brothers incident
NEW YORK: It was a bold move: buy at Lehman Brothers’s darkest hour. But a decade after Lehman’s collapse, a handful of hedge funds that bought up the bank’s debt for pennies on the dollar have made even more money than seemed possible.
More than US$124.6bil has flowed to Lehman creditors, and a further US$1.4bil may yet be coming. At least US$92.2bil has gone to those last in line: unsecured creditors. Some of the largest and earliest buyers, according to people familiar with the case, were distressed debt hedge funds Elliott Management Corp, Paulson & Co, Baupost Group LLC, and Varde Partners.
