Firms tied to Lehman fund clients may fail: filing

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By Olesya Dmitracova

LONDON (Reuters) - Assets frozen as a result of Lehman Brothers going into administration may have a negative impact beyond clients of the failed bank.

An attempt by four U.S.-based investment funds to force the administrators of Lehman's European arm, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), to provide them with more information about their securities and loans held at the bank has failed, court documents showed on Wednesday.

London's High Court dismissed the claim against PwC, in the filing dated November 24.

Prime brokerage arms were set up during the past decade to provide services to the hedge fund industry.

According to the filing, the four funds, which invest in and restructure companies, said: "Some of those companies ... may face collapse in direct consequence of the funds' inability to raise capital."

A similar fate may await many other firms tied to prime brokerage clients of Lehman Brothers International (Europe), the European unit of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc which filed for bankruptcy protection in September.

The judge said he was "sympathetic" to the plight of the applicants' and to others with assets locked up in Lehman Europe, but added: "The administrator must be accorded a wide measure of latitude."

PwC said the position of the four funds was not unique among the more than 1,000 prime brokerage clients of Lehman Europe, many of which had a similar relationship with the bank, the court filing showed.

The administrators are poring over $1 trillion worth of positions at Lehman Europe and said it will take a long time to work out how much creditors will get back.

The four funds involved in the filing are cited as telling the court: "All the applicants had were portfolios of securities, two loans and one small short position."

If by mid-December the funds' managers are unable to give the funds more information about the frozen assets at Lehman, the funds would likely be wound down, resulting in the collapse of at least four companies and job losses, the applicants said.

However the judge ruled that the administrator's "task would become quite unmanageable ... if he is to be at the beck and call of each and every creditor and each and every asset claimant."

Earlier this month, parent company Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc held off requests by creditors seeking to regain access to more than $300 million worth of assets caught up in the collapse of the 158-year-old investment bank.

(Editing by Sharon Lindores)

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