Libya's Lehman bet

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Libya invested billions of oil dollars around the world, including over $360 million with now-defunct Lehman Brothers.

The country, which has been rattled by violence for weeks, has also had billions of dollars frozen. The Lehman investment is just a small part of that but it does offer a glimpse into what types of assets Libya was buying up in the United States.

Libya used dozens of U.S. banks to store its wealth, mostly breaking it up into $300 million to $500 million chunks. Libya's fund managers purchased several small-sized bonds from Lehman over the course of several years, all of it in conservative fixed-income securities.

In January 2008, Libya decided to place its biggest bet yet with Lehman, buying up a $300 million position in a fixed-income product created by the investment firm.

The product was designed to provide investors with both capital protection and inflation protection over the course of five years. Lehman filed for bankruptcy nine months later.

Late last month, the United States froze $30 billion of Libyan assets.

It's not clear how much, if any, of Libya's $360 million Lehman investment has been returned.

Mohamed Layas, the head of the Libyan Investment Authority, told U.S. officials in January 2010 that his fund was still owed $300 million from Lehman, according to a WikiLeaks document.

Some money Libya will never get back. The Libya Arab Foreign Investment Co. purchased a total of $37.7 million in Lehman-backed unsecured corporate bonds in the years leading up to Lehman's bankruptcy. These types of unsecured bonds are fairly common on Wall Street and are used by investment banks to raise capital. Because they were unsecured, the Court ruled against Libya.

The lawyers representing Libya Arab Foreign Investment Co. and the Libyan Investment Authority did not respond to requests for comment.