Edwin Wong and the Zen of special situations

First, the back-story. It is September 15, 2008, the Monday morning after Lehman Brothers goes bankrupt. The bank’s Hong Kong offices are practically empty, the staff enjoying a well-earned (or undeserved) lie-in. But the desks of the special-situations team remain occupied. That team is run by Edwin Wong, who has risen swiftly through the Lehman ranks from vice-president in the late 1990s up to senior managing director, running the special-situations unit, which manages $2 billion, a…