Three bidders are competing in an auction Wednesday of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s investment management unit, which includes its Neuberger Berman money management business.
The auction was expected to start at midday and could last most of the day, Lehman lawyer Shai Waisman said.
Lehman filed for Chapter 11 protection on Sept. 15 in the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history. The filing marked the end of what was once the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank.
One of the bidders for the investment management business is a group that includes private equity firms Bain Capital Partners and Hellman & Friedman. That group had proposed paying $2.15 billion.
Mr. Waisman declined to say who the other two bidders are or what they bid.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James Peck approved a break-up fee and bidding procedures in mid-October for the bid from the two private equity firms over objections from the Carlyle Group, which was then a rival bidder. The break-up fee would be $52.5 million, reduced from $70 million.
Neuberger is a 69-year-old name on Wall Street that now manages more than $130 billion of investments.
Lehman has already agreed to sell key U.S. assets to Britain's Barclays Capital for $1.35 billion and its Asian, European and Middle Eastern businesses to Japan's largest brokerage, Nomura Holdings Inc., for $2 billion.
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