Up for some good James E. Cayne trivia? No? Then get the hell out of here, because Charlie Gasparino’s got a dossier of slow-news-Monday-interesting facts about Jimmy C. and we’re about to give them to you. They come from the latest issue of Trader Monthly, in which the Bear Stearns CEO is bestowed with the dubious honor of being inducted into the “Trader Monthly Hall of Fame,” a group who counts such luminaries as Matt Feshback (Feshback Brothers), Artie Reinhardt (Reinhardt & Merz) and Jeff Daniels (John Carney’s fluffer), among many (13) others.
Big Jim—Gasparino says he’s big but how big is Gasparino? Let us know—is about to be seventy-four, which might’ve been impressive had it not just been Kirk Kerkorian’s 90th birthday, and everything being relative. The spring chicken is giving no thought to retirement and claims to “feel great” and be “eternal.” Profits at Bear have tripled under his watch over the last decade and in the last five years BS stock has outperformed everyone except Goldman Sachs because no one outperforms Goldman Sachs at anything (unless we’re talking about their hedge fund and Chinese Checkers). Cayne is a (Purdue) college drop-out who was given his job at Bear Stearns by Alan “Ace” Greenberg who was apparently “impressed” with Cayne’s bridge skills, which he backed up by going on to become a 12-time national champ at the “sport,” to say nothing of his Canasta skills. Cayne also apparently smokes like a chimney (“No Wall Street CEO has smoked more cigars”: a. how does one quantify something like that b. big whoop—James Simons puts away three packs of cigarettes a day and wins this Cancer Contest hands down). He played a role in the Long Term Capital Management fiasco and saved New York when it nearly went it nearly went bankrupt in the 70's with a coconut, a Gillette Fusion razor and stick of Carefree gum. Now that we’re all caught up, let’s do what we do and click some mice:
Earlier: You Are A Dirty, Dirty Bank
Bear Stearns Accused of Swap Market Manipulation






Posted by , Jun 11, 2007 3:04PM
i didn't know james cayne was gay.
Posted by Mokshunamos , Jun 11, 2007 7:31PM
If I'm recalling Lowenstein's "When Genius Failed Correctly", Jimmy was the guy that told NY Fed's McDonough and Merrill's Komansky to get fucked when he was asked to participate in the LTCM bailout at the infamous meeting of the nine families. Which makes him heroic in a way (though I have no doubt he was simply acting in what he believed to be Bear's best interests and nothing more) because he wouldn't kowtow to all these clowns like Komanksy and Corzine who had drunk the LTCM kool-aid and now needed to stop the financial apocalypse. The Morgan CEO regarded Cayne as a Judas at this banker's Last Supper and there was a sense that Bear would pay for this quasi-betrayal. I wonder if he and Bear did pay.
In any case I'm voting LTCM but for somewhat different reasons.
Posted by NotNassar , Jun 11, 2007 8:56PM
Mokshu, there isn't any such bnook as "When Genius Failed Correctly." Or at least if there is, it isn't the book you're thinking of! Watch where you close your quotation marks, cowboy.
Posted by , Jun 12, 2007 10:07AM
Around this time of year, I used to play in an annual golf outing at Hollywood Golf Club in Deal, NJ. Every year a helicopter would land on the driving range at about 3pm or so. JC apparently likes to leave the office early and get an afternoon round in. Not sure if he does it every day, but it happened at least 5 years in a row.