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The World’s Laura Lynch profiles a Frenchman who started work at Lehman Bros. in London on Sept. 15, 2008 — the day it went bankrupt.
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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Boston. Almost a year ago today this was the news.
NEWS ANCHOR: Coming up in the next 60 minutes the major US investment bank, Lehman Brothers, goes bankrupt. It’s a financial earthquake on Wall Street.
WERMAN: The collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 15th 2008 touched off a global chain of events. It lead the world into a deep financial crisis. But as The World’s Laura Lynch reports it also created some intensely personal dramas especially for one young man in London.
LAURA LYNCH: The day that shook the financial world was also the day that the bottom fell out of Edouard d’Archimbaud’s life. Today in front of what was Lehman’s Brothers London offices in Canary Wharf the atmosphere is calm as cars and busses drives past, as office workers come and go. But one year ago when d’Archimbaud arrived here for his very first day of work as a trader the 24-year-old French man saw a very different scene.
EDOUARD D’ARCHIMBAUD: So I arrived in front of the Lehman Brother’s building and there were a lot of journalists and some policemen. It was very strange.
LYNCH: D’Archimbaud wasn’t certain what all the fuss was about until he went inside and read the newspaper headlines in the lobby. He didn’t even make it to his desk before he lost his job.
D’ARCHIMBAUD: I knew the situation but in my opinion it was impossible that such a big company could fail into bankruptcy so my first reaction was the surprise.
LYNCH: And after that he went out drinking with his friends and tried to figure out what to do next. Two days later d’Archimbaud went home to Paris. It took several weeks for him to find work with a brokerage and he tried to get over the life he was looking forward to in London but a few days ago he left that secure job to work with two friends on a new business start-up. He says it’s a natural step for a few reasons.
D’ARCHIMBAUD: The first is one is partly because it’s a dream for me to have my own business. A second reason could be that I don’t want to stay in a company just because it’s comfortable.
LYNCH: The company he’s now part of has developed software that forecasts demands for new products. It’s supposed to save companies money by reducing their risk when they market their wares. But starting up a new business, especially in the current economic environment, is a risky venture in itself. D’archimbaud acknowledges that but he says the harsh experience at the doorstep of Lehman Brothers a year ago has taught him a lot about taking chances.
D’ARCHIMBAUD: In the mind of a lot of people if you work for a small company there is a big risk of going bankrupt. But we saw with Lehman Brothers that it was also the case for big companies.
LYNCH: In the past year D’Archimbaud received other offers from headhunters in London to work at banks and investment firms. He’s turned them all down. He’s still in touch with the people he was supposed to work with at Lehman’s. They all act as a kind of support group. The day before yesterday he got one message that made him smile.
D’ARCHIMBAUD: I received an e-mail from my boss in Lehman Brothers. He was congratulating me for this new project.
LYNCH: His old boss is still working here at Canary Wharf in London at another bank. D’Archimbaud plans to spend the actual anniversary of Lehman’s collapse working on his new venture not thinking about the career and the life that began and ended on the same day one year ago. For The World I’m Laura Lynch in Canary Wharf in London.
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