By Antony Currie
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

If only 42 really was the answer to life, the universe and everything. That’s how many months Lehman Brothers languished in Chapter 11 protection. The Wall Street firm’s failure in September 2008 triggered a global financial meltdown. Sadly, the emergence of its ghost from bankruptcy three-and-a-half years later scarcely offers even symbolic hope that the crisis is truly over.

Lehman’s was neither a typical bankruptcy of the kind seen, say, at American Airlines nor a quickie reboot like the ones the government funded at Chrysler and General Motors. Instead, the firm offloaded its major businesses just days after going under – the asset management unit to its partners, the U.S. brokerage to Barclays, and the European and Asian operations to Nomura.

By Antony Currie

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. 

Brazilian banking star André Esteves is ready to samba like it’s 1999. BTG Pactual’s boss and part-owner has just signaled his intention to sell shares in the investment bank to the public later this year. In just three short years since he bought the business back from UBS for $2.5 billion, Esteves has dealt his way to a six-fold increase in the firm’s price. At some three times book value, Pactual is on the same multiple Goldman Sachs fetched in its IPO 13 years ago.

By Antony Currie
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

By Antony Currie
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

GM’s ormer financing arm would be better off waiting for an opening to launch a much-delayed stock offering rather than selling itself. Sure, the business now known as Ally Financial would fit well with several banks – or even its previous owner. And the U.S. Treasury, which pumped $17 billion into Ally and owns about three-quarters of it, wants its money back. But the troubled mortgage division, ResCap, may give some pause. And Ally is too big to swallow easily.

By Antony Currie
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

By Antony Currie

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Wall Street has lost one of its most entertaining characters. Goldman Sachs is dispensing with Lucas van Praag, its silver-tongued PR boss after 12 years. His colorful ripostes to the press often turned a tin ear to public sentiment. But they also reflected Goldman’s culture. Hiring a new mouthpiece could signal more changes are on the way.

By Antony Currie

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Morgan Stanley can now officially lord Facebook over its Wall Street rivals. The potentially $100 billion social network’s initial public offering prospectus confirms that arch-rival Goldman Sachs lost the top spot in one of the most widely anticipated stock offerings in a generation. That’s a comedown after it botched an investment round for Facebook, but Goldman still remains on the roster of underwriters, along with JPMorgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays and Allen & Co. The bigger embarrassment is for those who didn’t make the cut.

By Antony Currie

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Duncan Niederauer and Reto Francioni deserve a bit of a spanking for their failure to mate. Sure, the chief executives of NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Boerse, respectively, had a good financial case for putting the two exchanges together. They even had a credible argument for why the resulting 90 percent share of Europe’s exchange-traded derivatives market wouldn’t constitute a monopoly. But none of that matters now. They spent a year pursuing a transatlantic tie-up that European regulators never favored, and have now officially nixed.

By Antony Currie

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Wall Street may be starting to get it – “it” being the post-crisis contempt over excessive bonuses for chief executives. In 2010, some banks unduly increased compensation for their bosses. The Goldman Sachs board, for one, doubled Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein’s total pay even though the firm’s earnings, returns and stock price all fell. Based on the first few to release information about 2011, executive handouts are less out of whack.