After Barclays plc paid $1.75 billion for Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s North American investment banking business and its New York HQ, it decided to use $2.5 billion Lehman had "walled off" for bonuses to retain key bankers. One of those veterans is Michael Gelband, who could have received a $10 million to $25 million salary for at least two years.
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At the time this was announced, Lehman's
European employees were more than peeved
as they didn't know if they were getting paychecks. It also riled
government officials who created a $700 billion bailout package for the
banks ... executive compensation being a media-friendly topic and all. Gelband took care of that PR headache with the announcement that he was leaving for investment firm Millennium Management LLC. His departure is a blow to
Barclays, which is hoping more of Lehman's top pedigree don't follow
his lead. The bank could have a tough time running the business without
them.
Gelband will manage Millennium's global fixed-income
business. He was global head of capital markets at Lehman. He joined
Lehman in 1983. He eventually became global head of fixed income and
was a member of the executive committee. Gelband left in May 2007 after
a dispute with upper management about the slow growth of the fixed-income
division, especially in commodities trading,
a blog noted.
He returned to Lehman in June to head the entire capital markets
business as part of Lehman's effort to deal with its financial problems.
As
for Gelband's new digs, Millennium manages a global hedge fund,
Millennium Partners LP, with offices in Connecticut, New York, London,
Paris, Hong Kong and Singapore. The firm says it has about $13.5
billion in assets under management. -
Baz HiralalSee an earlier article from the NY Post
