By Patrick Fitzgerald 

The official winding down Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s brokerage business said Wednesday he plans to return another $2.2 billion in cash to former employees and other creditors, more than six years after the investment bank's collapse.

James W. Giddens, the court-appointed trustee winding down Lehman's broker-dealer, said in a filing Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York that he was seeking court approval to make another distribution to unsecured creditors. Combined with the $3.7 billion he has already paid, the brokerage's creditors will have recovered about 27 cents on the dollar.

"When this liquidation began, the possibility of a general estate was in doubt, and the fact that general creditors now stand to receive 27% of their allowed claims is a significant achievement," Mr. Giddens said in an emailed statement to The Wall Street Journal.

The trustee began paying back creditors--former employees, pension funds, banks and investment firms with unsecured claims against the brokerage--last summer after making the brokerage's customers whole.

The distinction between "customer" and "creditor" is a crucial one in the Lehman case. Customer claims get paid before creditors under the law covering failed broker-dealers, the 1970 Securities Investor Protection Act.

Mr. Giddens said he would now concentrate on resolving remaining claims and making further general creditor distributions to close the estate as promptly as possible.

Individual customers of the U.S. brokerage, which is under the purview of the bankruptcy court but not technically in bankruptcy protection, received about $92.3 billion almost immediately after Lehman collapsed. In all, Mr. Giddens has paid more than $106 billion to customers and hopes to have returned more than $110 billion when he is finished. Customers get 100% of their money back, while unsecured creditors get much less.

Lehman, once the nation's fourth-largest investment bank by assets under management, collapsed into the largest bankruptcy ever in September 2008 with $613 billion in liabilities.

The filing sent markets into turmoil and helped trigger a global financial crisis. Lehman's brokerage business was quickly sold to Barclays, and the company's New York-based holding company officially exited bankruptcy in 2012.

The Lehman estate is still winding down and selling off its remaining holdings, a process that is expected to continue for several more years. The brokerage is being unwound separately. Judge Shelley C. Chapman is overseeing both proceedings.

The bankruptcy judge will consider the trustee's request to distribute the funds to creditors at a hearing slated for Feb. 19 in New York.

Write to Patrick Fitzgerald at patrick.fitzgerald@wsj.com

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