Lehman's carcass has handed huge profits to distressed funds

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.