No sweet memories for former Lehman employees

By Sakshi Didwania

MUMBAI (Reuters) - A year after Lehman Brothers collapsed, Indians who used to work in the once prestigious Wall Street investment bank are reliving the shocking memories of Black Monday.

Indian employees working in New York and London switched jobs and cities after it filed for bankruptcy but are finding it hard to ignore the media frenzy on the anniversary of the Sept. 15 collapse.

"I usually get laughed at when I tell people that I worked at Lehman" says Pranav Pittie, a 26-year-old credit risk analyst at the New York office who now manages his family business in Pune.

In India, Lehman's 3000-strong staff and its back-office units were acquired by Nomura Holdings with most employees opting to stay on with Japan's largest broker.

Last September, the world was already struggling with a credit freeze stemming from a collapse in the U.S. housing market and Lehman was caught on the wrong side of it.

The demise of Lehman -- viewed as one of those banks that was too big to be allowed to fail -- triggered a far deeper global economic crisis and left markets temporarily paralyzed.

Employees say the management at Lehman was positive about the bank's liquidity till a week before it went bust and confident of a buyout up until the weekend before.

But the U.S. government and Federal Reserve failed to find a buyer and decided not to come up with a rescue package.