It's not clear that any investments in the banking business are going to pay off, but some buyers got much better deals than others by waiting until their targets went under. That's what Barclays and Nomura did in the case of bankrupt Lehman Brothers, where they were able to acquire major investment banking operations without getting saddled with Lehman's bad bets. And it's what JP Morgan did with Washington Mutual, picking up the deposits while leaving the FDIC with the assets.