Drexel Burnham Lambert

Drexel Burnham Lambert was a major Wall Street investment banking firm, which first rose to prominence and then was forced into bankruptcy in February 1990 by its involvement in illegal activities in the junk bond market, driven by Drexel employee Michael Milken. At its height, it was the fifth-largest investment bank in the United States. I.W. "Tubby" Burnham, a 1931 graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, founded the firm in 1935 as Burnham and Company, a small New York City–based retail brokerage. Burnham started the firm with $100,000 of capital, $96,000 of which was borrowed from his grandfather and the founder of a Kentucky distillery. It became one of the more successful brokerages in the country,...