Lehman paid managers, lawyers $28.6 million in July

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., whose bankruptcy fees are approaching $1.4 billion, paid lawyers and managers $28.6 million in July.

Restructuring firm Alvarez & Marsal LLC, whose co-founder Bryan Marsal runs the defunct investment bank, received $460.1 million in fees for 34 1/2 months of “interim management,” including about $9 million last month, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, based in New York, whose fees totaled $326.6 million for acting as Lehman’s lead bankruptcy law firm, collected $7.7 million in July.

Marsal, who bills Lehman hourly, ended a fight for control of the firm’s $65 billion liquidation by taking some potential payments from bondholders including hedge fund Paulson & Co. to give to derivatives creditors such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The chief executive officer has said holders of $100 billion in claims now support his liquidation plan, due to be voted on in November.

Marsal has said he aims to raise $65 billion by selling the defunct company’s assets in the next few years to pay estimated claims of more than $300 billion. He will start distributing some cash by next year, or more than three years after the September 2008 bankruptcy filing, he has said.

Kimberly Macleod, a Lehman spokeswoman, declined to comment on the fees.

Lehman and its affiliates reported cash and investments of $25.2 billion on July 31, compared with $24.4 billion on June 30. Of the July total, $2.7 billion was unavailable for use, according to the filing.

The Lehman bankruptcy in Manhattan became the most expensive in U.S. history in April 2010, when it topped the $757 million cost of energy trader Enron Corp.’s three-year liquidation, according to data compiled by Lynn LoPucki, a bankruptcy-law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Lehman’s creditors range from banks and hedge funds to the New York Giants and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, as well as individuals who hold Lehman bonds. Once the world’s fourth- biggest investment bank, Lehman filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008, with assets of $639 billion.