By Rob Starr, Content Manager, Big4.com

The joint administrators of Lehman Brothers International (Europe) (in administration) (‘LBIE’), have announced a 25.2% first interim dividend to unsecured creditors. This is a payment to be made at the end of the month and is at the upper end of market expectations.

“The payment of this significant dividend to such a large number of LBIE unsecured creditors is an important milestone for the administration. This has been the result of the collective efforts and co-operation of LBIE’s unsecured creditors, other stakeholders and the team working on the LBIE administration,” said Tony Lomas, Lead Administrator of LBIE and partner at PwC. “This has been the result of the collective efforts and co-operation of LBIE’s unsecured creditors, other stakeholders and the team working on the LBIE administration. Over the last six weeks alone, we have more than doubled the number of claims admitted and we look forward to returning a substantial amount of cash to creditors later this month.”

Claims offers have been made to a further 689 counterparties with a combined value of £1.3bn which remain to be agreed. Detailed work continues with these counterparties to resolve their complex trading relationships with LBIE, and to reconcile, value and agree their claims.

The 25.2% dividend rate has been made possible by the resolution of some material disputes with other Lehman affiliates and the agreement of a substantial proportion of LBIE’s unsecured creditor claims. As a result, as of 2 November 2012, LBIE has admitted for dividend purposes 1,582 claims totalling £7.0bn. This includes over 650 creditors with claims of less than £150,000 each, who have elected to accept the offer of a one-off 90% payment in full and final settlement of their claims.