Lehman Brothers

Investing through Lehman: $450M a week when the world looked like it was ending

After Lehman collapsed in September 2008, Oaktree had no data or precedent, only supposition. They reasoned that if the financial world melted down, investing wouldn't matter, but if it didn't and they sat out, they'd have failed. So Bruce Karsh deployed $7 billion in one quarter.

“And what we said is that if the financial world melts down and we invest, doesn't matter. But if we don't invest and the financial world doesn't melt down, then we didn't do our job. So we have to do it. And we invested on that basis. And Bruce, who runs those funds, invested an average of $450 million a week for 15 weeks, $7 billion in a quarter.”