David Tepper: I was at a Jets game when Lehman went under, thinking ‘world was going to end’

Appaloosa Management’s David Tepper thought the banking system would implode during the financial crisis a decade ago.

This week marks the 10th anniversary of Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy, which many investors regard as the seminal event of the financial crisis.

“I was at a Jets game … Lehman just went down and then I was just trying to figure it out, I thought it would domino out … Merrill would go, then just going down the line, Morgan Stanley would go, then Goldman would go,” he said in an interview with CNBC’s “Halftime Report” aired on Friday. “That was when I thought the world was going to end.”

Tepper was also asked by CNBC’s Scott Wapner if he sees another financial crisis on the horizon. The investor downplayed the prospect of any similar-type event in the short-term.

“The banks are so much better capitalized [now]. Part of the problem was banks were way over-levered,” he said. “So you can’t have a repeat in the developed world.”

From inception in 1993, Tepper’s hedge fund generated gross annual returns of more than 30 percent, according to a source familiar with the firm’s returns. Appaloosa Management has approximately $14 billion of assets under management.

The billionaire investor is also the owner of the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League.