Nothing like waiting to the last second – Lehman Brothers, at 1:21 AM ET, says that it was unable to find a buyer for the firm and that it intends to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

With this news, which was expected, the sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America, and markets are falling around the world in response to the Lehman, as well as a crashing dollar, Monday will be a very interesting day on Wall Street.

Talk about a wild day on Wall St. – Lehman Bro. is on the verge of bankruptcy and Bank of America has agreed to buy Merrill Lynch at $29 / per share, which is a $12 premium over Friday’s close.

Why the buy-out of Merrill and not Lehman?  While Merrill is also facing a number of debt issues, much like Lehman, their assets are considered to be superior to Lehman.  Merrill Lynch has $1.6 trillion in asset management.  Also, this purchase will allow Bank of America the ability to take Merrill’s 49.8% stake in BlackRock which has more than $1 trillion in assets under management.

This means Monday will see the transformation of Wall Street – Lehman will, most likely, go under and Bank of America will purchase the 94 year old institution known as Merrill Lynch.

Not a bad purchase on B o A’s part for $44 Billion.