After failing in the brokerage business seven years ago, Lehman Bros. Chairman and CEO, Richard Fuld, also known as Dick Fuld, is reportedly now trying his luck in the real estate business. According to a report from cnbc.com, Fuld's advisory firm, Matrix Advisors, has opened a real estate brokerage company, as shown in public documents.
Another report from usatoday.com states that the New York Department of State business records reveal that the licensed real estate brokerage named Matrix RE Brokerage LLC was opened in April. Two months before that, in February, Matrix Advisors hired Howard Schussler, a former asset manager and an experienced real estate broker who also previously worked at C-III Capital Partners, a "national real estate services and investment management company."
The report further states that apart from Schussler, the company also hired a certain John Yanchek who used to work at Goldman Sachs as a natural resources analyst, as stated in the company's website.
Matrix' website, spotted by USA Today and which was said to be under construction during the time, reportedly states that the company's real estate division "provides real estate transactional and advisory services which include sourcing investment opportunities, equity and debt, financial modeling and due diligence for all asset classes." The Matrix website also apparently listed Fuld as the chairman, CEO and founder of Matrix, and former Lehman executives Ernest Green and David Karlin as managing directors, but the information has now been removed, according to USA Today.
USA Today also said it tried to reach out to Fuld and Schussler to confirm the news but did not receive any reply.
Lehman Brothers' filing for bankrupty back in September 2008 became highly controversial as Fuld was summoned by Congress and was called the "poster boy for the kind of Wall Street excess that led to the financial crisis."
Fuld is scheduled to appear as a keynote speaker at a conference in midtown Manhattan this week. It is said to be his first public appearance since his former $30 billion brokerage firm collapsed.
