SiliconBeat

Charles Schwab, the San Francisco financial services firm, has had to write down floating rate notes it held from Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual, “(i)n light of the extraordinary events involving certain financial services firms during the past two weeks,” according to a filing it made Monday with the SEC.

The company is taking an “other-than-temporary” $50 million impairment charge against senior floating rate notes held by Lehman Brothers Holdings. As of Friday, these notes were valued at about 15% of their original worth. Lehman filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition on September 15.

And $39 million invested in Washington Mutual Bank’s senior floating rate notes due next year were at around 10% of their face value, which results in an estimated pre-tax charge of $35 million. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation seized WaMu on September 25, 2008.

And while they were on the subject, Schwab pointed out that it doesn’t hold any debt issued by Merrill Lynch, which has agreed to be acquired by Bank of America, or American International Group,  the insurance giant that the U.S. government acquired an 80 percent stake in in return for a two-year, $85-billion line of credit.