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The rumor swirling around this morning is that Lehman Brothers is trying to improve it’s credit position and to do so is looking to unload sell 14 billion in commercial real estate. Others are also looking to buy some or all of these assets but BlackRock is the leading contender.

The tight credit market is making the big boys make decisions that they normally would not do. Selling over a third of their real estate assets in 4 months typically is not the right move for a bank. But with the credit market tight and bad lending decisions popping up all over the place, Lehman is in need of cash.

Of course, you have to wonder how big of a haircut they will take selling into a slow commercial market to begin with. If they were not in such a big hole, do you think Lehman Brothers would even think about selling these properties?

Lehman’s balance sheet has about $40 billion of commercial real estate and related securities on its balance sheet.

“Clearly this area of exposure Lehman has is weighing on its credit,” said Jason Brady, portfolio manager at Thornburg Investment Management in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Reducing commercial real estate exposure could force another $1.5 billion of write-downs, Merrill Lynch analyst Guy Moszkowski wrote in a report on Wednesday, adding that the level of the write-downs would depend on the size and terms of any sale. via  Reuters.

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