Lehman’s fortune-tellers

Yesterday, UBS put out a research note saying Lehman was likely to make a sizeable asset sale, which may include the disposition of its investment management unit Neuberger Berman.

Today, Morgan Stanley said in a research note that although the bank may make a “meaningful” asset disposition, it was unlikely to sell Neuberger.

This apparent contradiction isn’t the first, let’s say, difference of opinion among analysts, reporters, lawyers, bankers and other Wall Street mandarins who have waxed eloquent and written reams on the fate of Lehman, the smallest surviving major independent Wall Street investment bank after the near collapse and takeover of Bear Stearns.

Last week’s flavour was a debate over whether Lehman would go private after a Fox-Pitt Kelton analyst said that may be the best course of action for the brokerage and the New York Post reported that the investment bank was indeed weighing such an option. The idea was quickly shot down in a series of articles, research notes and such that rattled off a host of problems with it.

At least some of Lehman’s issues may just be phantom problems dreamed up by speculators, one investment banker said last week.

“Like the market knows more than the management team and auditors of Lehman Brothers? How’s that possible? What do they know? They don’t know sh*t,” the banker said. “I am not here to defend Lehman. But let’s get real.”

Still, many of the notes and reports are considered opinions from people who one would suspect do understand a thing or two about how the business works.

And the difference in opinion about the best way forward could very well illustrate the problem Lehman Chief Dick Fuld and his team are facing today — there are no easy solutions before the investment bank.

So what do you think Lehman will do?

(Photo: This Reuters picture shows a Sotheby’s employee look at ”Fortune Teller,” a painting by late Swiss artist Albert Anker.)