The administrators of stricken Wall Street bank Lehman Brother, PricewaterhouseCoopers have announced that 750 employees have been made redundant with effect from today after deciding that a restructuring of the business was necessary.

The vast majority of the cuts will be made in London, where the firm employed about 5,000 people.

In a statement, PwC partner Tony Lomas said: "It is extremely disappointing that despite exhausting all avenues these jobs could not be saved. As we move into our third week, we continue to be focused on maximising the value of recoveries for creditors, whilst minimising the impact on other stakeholders as much as possible."

The statement goes on to say that arrangements are being made to ensure that over the coming days, the individuals affected by the redundancies have the opportunity to attend a one on one meeting to discuss how this impacts them personally.

Lehman’s businesses are being sold to UK’s Barclays Bank, which acquired the US investment banking and trading operations, including private investment management and Nomura of Japan which is acquiring the Asian businesses as well as some assets in Europe and the Middle East.

Also today US private equity firms Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman reached an all paper deal to acquire Lehman’s Neuberger Berman investment management business for $2.15 billion, a sharp discount to the pre-crisis valuation of around $7 billion.

The new firm will be called Neuberger Investment Management, and will have more than $230 billion in assets.

Some UK-based private banks are thought to be keen to hire Lehman staff, according to several commentators WealthBriefing has spoken to in the last few days. It had been feared that key staff were being made to work on throughout their notice periods by the administrators even though hopes of being employed were bleak. Some headhunters have also been critical of certain institutions that had made it clear they would not be paying fees for introductions of Lehman staff.

The effects of the Lehman collapse are being felt too by many private banking clients, some of whom have bought Lehman capital guaranteed structured products. Yesterday, Credit Suisse calmed the nerves of some of its clients by offering protection to a section of its client base which was exposed to Lehman capital protected products.

The move is seen by commentators as potentially opening the door to claims from the rest of its client base and to claims which may be made by clients of other private banks.