NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc is planning to sell at least $8 million worth of an art collection that once decorated the offices of the 150-year-old investment bank.
The company filed court papers on Monday seeking authority to pay fees to art handlers who provided warehousing and framing services prior to the bankruptcy. Lehman said it needed to pay the fees so it could access the artwork and show it to potential buyers.
About $8 million worth of art is being stored in warehouses in New York and Paris, Lehman said. Other pieces of artwork are still located in the company’s offices, the court documents showed. It did not specify the value of the additional artworks.
Lehman filed for bankruptcy protection on September 15 in the largest U.S. bankruptcy filing in history. Its core U.S. brokerage business and its New York headquarters were subsequently purchased by British bank Barclays PLC. The parent company is still seeking to unwind itself and sell other assets, like its investment management division.
In the past few weeks Lehman has focused on selling some of its more tangible assets. In addition to the art collection, Lehman filed papers last month to sell 50 acres of undeveloped land in Hamilton Township, New Jersey for $6.25 million. It also gained court approval last week to sell a corporate plane for $24.9 million.
A hearing on the request to pay its art handlers is expected to be held on December 3, the court documents showed.
Reporting by Emily Chasan; Editing by Bernard Orr
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