(L-R) Ex-Lehman banker Lawrence McCarthy and author Lawrence Bond (Photo: Republished with permission from Lawrence Bond. Credit: Amy Rader)
(L-R) Ex-Lehman banker Lawrence McCarthy and author Lawrence Bond (Photo: Republished with permission from Lawrence Bond. Credit: Amy Rader)

The former Lehman Brothers' banker who predicted that credit-default-swap traders were "working on bringing down the whole world," has died, aged 49.

His ex-wife Suzanne McCarthy confirmed that the senior managing director at Cantor Fitzgerald died at Roosevelt Hospital in New York, after suffering from a heart ailment and then eventually from an aneurysm.

McCarthy worked at Lehman from 2003 to 2007, as the head of proprietary US distressed bond and bank loan trading, leaving a year before its bankruptcy.

He has also worked as the co-head of levered products at Chapdelaine Credit Partners.

Tributes

"We lost a good man and a good friend and a good family man, one of the most well-known names in the distressed community, and a great co-worker," Adam Vengrow, co-head of New York-based Cantor Fitzgerald's credit fixed-income group said in a media interview.

McCarthy, who was heavily featured in Lawrence McDonald's 2009 book, A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers, said McCarthy was "one of the most fearless traders to ever work on Wall Street."

He also delivered a short tribute on Twitter.

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