A combination of leverage, extensive counterparty relationships, and dependence upon asset sales for liquidity made such institutions both vulnerable to a wholesale funding run and a threat to the entire system.
4  BIS Review 70/2009  One of the many striking consequences of the crisis for the U.S. financial system is that none of the five large, free-standing investment banks that existed in 2007 remains so today. Lehman, of course, declared bankruptcy.