London  - Staff emplo

New York, Sept. 15 : Wall Street was in turmoil on Sunday as Merrill Lynch found shelter in a 44 billion dollar takeover by Bank of America and Lehman Brothers headed towards filing for bankruptcy.

BOFA’S bid for Merrill came as the world’s top banks appeared close to abandoning efforts to save Lehman and set out to build a firewall against further financial chaos with a 50 billion dollar liquidity pool to support other vulnerable institutions.

Paris - Reacting to the collapse of US bank Lehmann Brothers, the Paris Bourse plunged by nearly 3.5 per cent shortly after opening, led downward by financial shares.

Madrid  - The shares of top Spanish banks plunged Monday following US investment bank Lehman Brothers announcing it would file for bankruptcy protection.

Stockholm - The Stockholm bourse dropped 3 per cent in opening trading on Monday in the wake of reports that US investment banker Lehman Brothers was to file for bankruptcy protection.

Shares in the four main banking groups including Nordea dropped some 5 per cent, although Swedish banking groups have said they have not been exposed to the troubled subprime US mortgage market.

Clothes retailer Hennes & Mauritz was also impacted negatively as was ball-bearing maker SKF and construction group JM, while the SAS Group share, operator of joint carrier Scandinavian Airlines, surged 15 per cent.

SAS on Friday confirmed it was in talks and "evaluating various structural possibilities."

Frankfurt  - The European Central Bank (ECB) said Monday it was watching money market conditions closely in the eurozone, following indications that US bank Lehman Brothers would declare itself bankrupt.

The ECB said from its headquarters in Frankfurt it was ready to contribute to orderly conditions in the euro money market.

The US Federal Reserve said Sunday it was taking measures to stabilize conditions on financial markets, including accepting a wider range of financial instruments as collateral.