Lehmans secretly borrowed from Fed; Cowdery bets on diamonds

Thursday newspaper round-up: Lehman Brothers secretly borrowed billions of dollars from the US Federal Reserve months before the investment bank filed for bankruptcy, it has emerged.

The central bank lent Lehman up to $18bn (£11.2bn) as part of a formerly undisclosed lending programme that specialised in month-long loans to banks and other financial institutions. The disclosure of which banks tapped the programme, known as the single-tranche open-market operations, follows a request made by Bloomberg News under the Freedom of Information Act. MORE... Clive Cowdery, the Resolution founder who made about $240m buying and selling insurers, is betting on diamonds after prices rose five times faster than gold this year on surging demand from China and India. MORE...