Lehman Brothers Holdings Chief Executive Richard Fuld will step down from that post by year's end, and will not claim any severance or bonus when he departs, a spokesman for the bankrupt financial firm said Wednesday.
Dick Fuld
Fuld will continue as nonmanagement chairman of the board after leaving as CEO, according to the statement from Lehman Brothers spokesman Jonathan Doorley.
Lehman , which filed the largest-ever U.S. bankruptcy case on Sept. 15, is in the process of unwinding its business.
A new CEO was not named. Fuld does not appear in a document that outlines the company's new organizational structure.
Instead, Bryan Marsal of restructuring firm Alvarez & Marsal heads the organizational chart as chief restructuring officer, according to a written presentation to creditors dated Nov. 3.
While Fuld offered his resignation as CEO immediately after the sale of Lehman's core U.S. assets to Barclays in September, "Bryan Marsal asked him to stay for a reasonable transition period" through the end of 2008, Doorley said.
"For the record, Mr. Fuld offered to provide this transition cooperation without any claim to severance or other bonus payment at the end of his employment," Doorley said.
"This offer was accepted" by the bankrupt Lehman entity, he said.
Separately Wednesday, the New York Comptroller asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan to replace Fuld with a court-appointed trustee, saying Fuld "drove the company toward ruin."
"Lehman's board of directors and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Richard Fuld Jr. are wholly inappropriate parties to supervise the company through this large and complex liquidation," State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli wrote in court documents.
DiNapoli is trustee of the New York State Common Retirement Fund, a party of interest in the Lehman bankruptcy.