Just four days after Bear Stearns chief executive Alan Schwartz assured Wall Street that his company was not in trouble, he was forced to sell the investment bank to competitor JPMorgan Chase for a bargain-basement price of US$2 a share, or US$236.2 million.
Sunday's stunning last-minute buyout was aimed at averting a Bear Stearns bankruptcy and a spreading crisis of confidence in the global financial system sparked by the collapse in the subprime mortgage market. Bear Stearns was the most exposed to risky bets on the loans; it is now the first major bank to be undone by that market's collapse.
The Federal Reserve and the US government swiftly approved the all-stock buyout, showing the urgency of completing the deal before world markets opened. The Fed also essentially made the takeover risk-free by saying it would guarantee up to US$30 billion of the troubled mortgage and other assets that got the US' fifth-largest investment bank into trouble.
"This is going to go down in very historic terms," said Peter Dunay, chief investment strategist for New York-based Meridian Equity Partners. "This is about credit being overextended, and how bad it is for major financial institutions and for individuals. This is why we're probably heading into a recession."
JPMorgan Chase & Co said it will guarantee all business -- such as trading and investment banking -- until Bear Stearns' shareholders approve the deal, which is expected to be completed during the second quarter. The acquisition includes Bear Stearns' midtown Manhattan headquarters.
JPMorgan chief financial officer Michael Cavanagh did not say what would happen to Bear Stearns' 14,000 employees worldwide or whether the 85-year-old Bear Stearns name would live on after surviving the Great Depression, two world wars and a slew of recessions.
He told analysts and investors on a conference call that JPMorgan was most interested in buying Bear Stearns' prime brokerage business, which completes trades for big investors such as hedge funds.
A bankruptcy protection filing of Bear Stearns could have heightened anxiety in world financial markets amid a deepening credit crunch. So far, global banks have written down some US$200 billion worth of securities slammed amid the credit crisis -- more write-downs could come. Last week, a bond fund controlled by private equity firm Carlyle Group faltered near collapse because of investments linked to mortgage-backed securities.
JPMorgan's acquisition of Bear Stearns represents roughly 1 percent of what the investment bank was worth just 16 days ago. It marked a 93.3 percent discount to Bear Stearns' market capitalization as of Friday, and roughly a 98.8 percent discount to its book value as of Feb. 29.
"The past week has been an incredibly difficult time for Bear Stearns," Schwartz said in a statement. "This represents the best outcome for all of our constituencies based upon the current circumstances."
Wall Street analysts say the bid to rescue Bear Stearns was more than just saving one of the world's largest investments banks -- it was a prop for the US economy and the global financial system. An outright failure would cause huge losses for banks, hedge funds and other investors to which Bear Stearns is connected.
After days of denials that it had liquidity problems, Bear was forced into a JPMorgan-led, government-backed bailout on Friday.
The arrangement, the first of its kind since the 1930s, resulted in Bear getting a 28-day loan from JPMorgan with the government's guarantee that JPMorgan would not suffer any losses on the deal.
Bear Stearns was founded in 1923 and in recent years was best known for its aggressive investing in mortgage-backed securities -- and what was once a cash cow turned into the investment bank's undoing.
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