Every hour, the U.S. spends about $100 million on oil. Of course, a big chunk goes to the Middle East, and ultimately, into sovereign wealth funds.

Although far from exact, it looks like sovereign wealth funds have about $3.5 trillion in assets, which is more than private equity and hedge funds. In other words, this is a huge opportunity for Wall Street.

Well, Lehman (NYSE: LEH) is taking advantage of this opportunity and is setting up a sovereign wealth division, with Makram Azar, who is an M&A maestro (in the global media sector), as its chief. He will set up shop in Dubai, the center of the universe for sovereign wealth funds.

This week on CNBC, Azar talked about his new role. Basically, he'll be developing a platform to help sovereign wealth funds diversify their bulging assets into commodities, minority investments, hedge funds, real estate and so on.

It will mean lots of coordination among the divisions of Lehman, but more importantly, if things work out, it could be a much-needed source of fees.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook (www.mergerbook.com) and is also a principal in Averiware, which provides an ERP system to small and midsize businesses.

Lehman spins a sovereign wealth division originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.