2. The government stood by.
3, caused by the subprime mortgage crisis.
Background knowledge:
1, Lehman Brothers, which dominated the mortgage bond business in the United States for 40 years in a row, failed to stand firm under the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis, and its huge "toxic assets" related to housing mortgage loans suffered heavy losses in the subprime mortgage crisis. Before the subprime mortgage crisis broke out, he held a large number of subprime financial products and other low-grade housing mortgage financial products.
2. Although both Barclays and Bank of America showed great interest in the acquisition of Lehman Brothers, the reason why they finally chose to give up was that they didn't get the promise from the US government or other Wall Street companies to protect the potential losses of Lehman Brothers' assets.
Due to the wrong decision made by Neuberger Berman, a subsidiary of Lehman, Lehman Brothers is burdened with more than 50 billion dollars of assets that are difficult to get rid of. After the Bear Stearns incident, the Federal Reserve opened up special financing channels for investment banks, allowing them to lend directly to the central bank like commercial banks. However, Lehman Brothers never used this policy and lost the best opportunity to save itself.