Lehman lifts the veil, Alvarez takes the cake

Bloomberg reported today that Lehman has paid its bankruptcy advisors$262.6 million for the work they've completed over the course of the past nine months. Taking the largest share of the pie was Alvarez & Marsal, which has so far brought in $115 million in fees. (To get a feel for the enormity of the Lehman bankruptcy filing and the complexity of the work involved, consider that AlixPartners, as an advisor to GM in its bankruptcy, will likely walk away with roughly half of A&M's take.) A&M was appointed to the Lehman case to aid in restructuring efforts and recover money for creditors—an amount that now looks like it stands to exceed $11 billion.

Bryan Marsal, Lehman's acting CEO, said the Lehman job "is the equivalent of doing 20 assignments." And, if he may say so himself, "This was a very tough job that only a handful of firms could have tackled."

With all of this newfound face time in the press, not to mention the high demand for bankruptcy and restructuring work flooding the market these days, it'll be interesting to see how A&M fares in our upcoming Vault Guide to the Top 50 Management and Strategy Consulting Firms, which will be out later this summer.