When Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld named Herbert (Bart) McDade III, 48, president and COO of the embattled Wall Street investment bank on June 16, he may have been taking a big step toward replacing himself some day. McDade, a 25-year Lehman veteran, is credited with ramping up revenue in his last two jobs, first as head of fixed income and then as head of equities. “Bart is the heir apparent,” says George Walker, Lehman’s global head of investment management, who now reports to McDade. McDade’s first job? Persuade investors that Lehman won’t go the way of Bear Stearns Cos. after reporting a first-ever quarterly net loss of $2.8 billion, raising about $12 billion in capital, replacing its COO and CFO and watching its stock price fall 70 percent in the past 12 months. Less than two weeks after his promotion, McDade, who declines to comment, rehired two former colleagues who had left the firm — Michael Gelband as head of sales and trading for the combined equity and fixed-income divisions and Alix Kirk, who is in charge of deploying Lehman’s own capital.
