Lehman Brothers is to acquire LightPoint Capital Management, a leveraged loan investment manager with approximately $3.2 billion in assets under management.

The business will become an integral part of Lehman Brothers Asset Management which manages fixed income and money market assets of approximately $114 billion. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 2002, Chicago-based LightPoint manages a series of collateralized loan obligation vehicles, utilising a research-based approach to create high-quality well-diversified portfolios across a variety of asset classes for institutional and qualified individual investors, according to the company.

As part of the transaction, LightPoint chief executive Thomas Kramer joins Lehman Brothers Asset Management as a managing director. Together with Ann Benjamin, Mr Kramer will co-head Leveraged Asset Management.

Lehman’s Investment Management Division assets under management totalled $263 billion as of 31 May 2007.