Dave Mohr and Izak Odendaal, Old Mutual Multi-Managers This week marks the eighth anniversary of the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers . It was the largest bankruptcy on record – the bank had $690 billion in assets - and turned the one year-old credit crunch into a full-blown global financial crisis. With credit markets seizing up, especially interbank lending, the spill-over to the already declining US real economy was severe. Although the crisis was triggered in America, it spread worldwide, putting over-leveraged banking systems under tremendous pressure. Global flows of credit evaporated and the world economy went into a deep recession. September 2008 was the low point not only for equity markets. As economies worsened, companies started reporting losses and the market continued to fall until March 2009. Many companies embarked on painful restructuring processes, worsening job losses. But the relentless cost-cutting also meant that they were able to increase profitabilit...