It is believed that potential buyers walked away after Hank Paulson said that the US government would not guarantee Lehman's liabilities as it had done with Bear Stearns earlier this year and with Fannie and Freddie last week.
Potential suitors who would have had to find $35bn to shore up the company's balance sheet are believed to have included Barclays and Bank of America, the latter going on to tie up a deal to buy Merrill Lynch, which was announced earlier today.
