ANZ among lesser Lehman creditors

ANZ managed to make it into the list of the top thirty unsecured creditors of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, which filed for bankruptcy protection in the US yesterday afternoon, Australian time.

Lehman, somewhat surprisingly, opted for the "chapter 11" route that caters to the reorganisation and even the potential recovery of the firm.

ANZ's two unsecured loans and one letter of credit add to just US$82 million, which is chicken feed by the standards of Lehman's largest creditor.

Lehman's largest creditors, at least notionally, are are Citigroup (owed US$138 billion) and Bank of New York Mellon Corp (owed US$17 billion).

Citigroup, though, point out that they are "indenture trustee" for securities of US$138 billion, and are not a unsecured creditor in their own right. The Bank of New York Mellon Corp point out that they also serve as trustee for certain Lehman bond offerings.

This makes a number of Japanese and European banks (including Azoro, BNP, Mizuho, Sumitomo Mitsubishi and UFJ) as Lehman's largest unsecured creditors though each of these is owed only several hundred million each.

National Australia Bank scrapes into the list of Lehman's top unsecured creditors with a letter of credit for US$10 million.

Lehman has not, yet, published any details on secured creditors.