The placement of Lehman Brother’s UK arm into administration has put thousands of UK’s jobs at risk. The Lehman’s US holding company filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11. According to the partner of administrator PricewaterhouseCooper (PWC), Tony Lomas, Lehman group was managing its funding on global basis and the UK trading operation could not meet its obligations due to drying up of funds.

Lehman Brother employs 5,000 people in the UK.

PWC, which was appointed administrator for Lehman Brothers International (Europe), stated that it was working on business wind up in an orderly manner. Lehman Brothers has suffered sub-prime mortgage losses worth billions of dollars. Its UK collapse and US bankruptcy has made it the biggest casualty of the financial crisis which the global markets have been facing over the past year.

The staff at offices in High Wycombe, Birminghamshire did not know about the impact of collapse on their jobs. No one was told anything about the developments hence everyone was turning up for work as usual. A woman worker said that she was hoping for the best.

According to Angela Knight, chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association, Lehman Brothers was a small investment bank in the UK which did not take retail deposits. She asserted that no UK banks were facing situations similar to the Lehman Brothers.