CIT/Lehman: quantity, not quality

Uncle Sam has decided there’s no room in its lifeboat for struggling business lender CIT. With cash running short and the firm, with $76bn of assets to finance, unable to tap credit markets, CIT appears doomed to join Lehman Brothers in Davy Jones’ locker of bust financial services firms. CIT’s shares have plunged to basically worthless territory and the cost of insurance against default is now prohibitively expensive. The irony is that had Lehman consummated talks to buy CIT in 2002 – it offere...