Or was that Berberger Neuman? No matter. As soon as Lehman sells the one, it can start building the other. And it may have to, considering that the bank’s market capitalization of roughly $11 billion isn’t far from the value of the asset-management business. After that’s gone, what’s left? Others are making the same inquiry.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. is trying to sell its fund-management unit to cover further mortgage- related writedowns. If it does, what's left won't be worth much, based on how investors value the firm.

Lehman's market capitalization of $11.2 billion is almost equal to the value of its asset-management arm, which includes Neuberger Berman Inc. That leaves its main business of trading stocks and bonds as having little worth. The numbers are similar for Merrill Lynch & Co.: Take out its retail-brokerage and asset- management businesses, and the investors' valuation of the rest of the third-biggest U.S. securities firm is zero.

After being the most profitable business on Wall Street, generating more than $65 billion in pretax profits for the four largest U.S. securities firms between 2002 and 2006, trading has become a black hole. It still accounts for about half of the revenue at the Wall Street firms. Yet Lehman Chief Executive Officer Richard Fuld and Merrill CEO John Thain have been unable to convince shareholders to attach a value to the businesses.

"We're standing at one edge of the Grand Canyon, looking at the other side," said Brad Hintz, an analyst at New York-based Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. and a former Lehman finance chief. "I can see a rejuvenated fixed-income market and Lehman as one of the major players in that market at the other side, but we don't know how deep the canyon is. And we have to get through the canyon to get to the other side."

Lehman's asset-management unit is worth about $8 billion, based on the amount of cash it manages for clients, compared with publicly traded rivals such as New York-based BlackRock Inc. or Federated Investors Inc. of Pittsburgh. That leaves less than $3.5 billion for the rest of the fourth-largest U.S. securities firm.

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