Lehman Brothers Inc., the nation's fourth-largest investment bank, filed Wednesday to sell $1.5 billion worth of debt.
The money raised by issuing the debt is to be used for general corporate purposes, according to a shelf registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Shelf registrations give companies the capacity to issue more debt than they actually need at any one time. A company might issue $100 million in bonds, but if it filed a shelf registration for $500 million, it could issue $400 million more whenever it wants.
Lehman Brothers said in its filing that it can issue another $495 million of debt from a previous shelf registration, bringing the total debt the investment bank can bring to market up to $1.995 billion.