Barclays announced late Tuesday night that it plans to acquire Lehman Brothers' North American investment banking for $0.25 billion.

Barclays will pay close to current market value of $1.5 billion for the Lehman head office and data centres and about $1.75 billion for its assets.

Lehman's trading assets have an estimated value of $40 billion.

Barclays will be buying Lehman's New York headquarters, and will be taking on approximately 10,000 of Lehman's employees.

The agreement will be terminated if not completed by September 24th.

By Megan Ainscow
©CEP News Ltd. 2008