Banks still are struggling to get their proprietary hedge funds in shape. Lehman Brothers moved about $1 billion of assets in three troubled funds onto its balance sheet. It also bought another $800 million in "deteriorated" assets from other funds, according to the AP. Obviously, adding to the balance sheet is not what a big bank, one with capital issues no less, wants right now. But what choice did it have? The alternative was to let the funds fail, and then you've got a huge customer problem to deal with. The bank might have pitched these moves as a dramatic Goldman Sachs-style rescue. But for whatever reason, it chose not to.   

For more:
- here's the AP story

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