Lehman Brothers was a respected and powerful investment bank in New York prior to its bankruptcy on September 15, 2008. Although Lehman initially began as a supplier and a trader in the cotton business in Alabama in 1850, it quickly moved into the brokerage business. Its first foray was in cotton and other commodities, later shifting to the financing of emerging industries before finally moving into investment banking activities in the first decade of the 20th century. It helped bring borrowers (usually firms that wished to expand their business operations) and lenders [Page 1023](most prominently households wanting to invest their savings) together for more than a century. It provided investment banking services, sales and trading in equity and fixed-income assets, asset management (especially private investments), ...