In a few minutes from now CNBC senior soppressata correspondent Charlie Gasparino will reveal on air that JPMorgan Chase's top investment banking executives yesterday said that their acquisition of Bear Stearns was worth far more than the $10 a share price they paid. At a meeting held in JPMorgan's large cafeteria, attended by about 1,000 employees, top executives with the megabank also said there will likely be additional layoffs.
Oh, and hey. If there's ever a meeting in a bank with a thousand people attending and no one tells us about it, you people are going to be in a lot of trouble.
Update: Remember that rumor that notorious penny pincher cost cutter Jamie Dimon ordered that hamburgers in the cafeteria at JP Morgan be made smaller. Well, yesterday he denied that he shrunk the burgers. Kind of. Immediately after his denial he admitted he liked the idea. "If I had thought about it, I would have done it," Dimon said according to Gasparino's report.
JPMorgan CEO: We Got Bear Stearns on the Cheap [CNBC]
Posted by cauxion , Jun 17, 2008 1:12PM
Very interesting...
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 1:19PM
"Later, Dimon was asked by an employee if he could have "access to the Bear cafeteria, because they serve bigger hamburgers there." Dimon did not answer the question."
Guy/Gal has some balls.
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 1:48PM
How nice for Dimon that the Bear Stearns takeover gave JP Morgan more value than the $10 a share they paid for it.
Former Bear Stearns employees working at JP Morgan have noticed the small cost-cutting touches everywhere. For instance, the air conditioning in the lobby is cut off in the evening, leaving the security guards and delivery people to swelter. Bear Stearns employees were given BlackBerries with a phone feature, and allowed to use it free after hours. JP Morgan are given BlackBerries without the phone feature and told that if they want a cell phone, they can pay for it themselves.
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 1:52PM
Nice to gloat about it, i imagine many of the people listening were bear employees who got taken out of their shres at $10
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 1:52PM
did you really think JP wouldn't impose their ways on Bear employees? How would that be fair to the JP peeps?
Posted by Johnny , Jun 17, 2008 2:12PM
@ 1:48
Regarding the blackberry with phone: who in their right mind really wants their employer to have complete access to personal phone / text / blackberry use?!?! For $100 / month you buy yourself some privacy.
Are people really that cheap / dumb..??
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 2:12PM
second that.
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 2:15PM
Did JPM ever say they were paying full price? Isn't it already a part of the established record that Paulson kept the price low to fend off a moral hazard?
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 2:16PM
Interesting implication. By stating they underpaid, they are implying the government (read: the taxpayers) backed more than they probably should have.
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 2:21PM
Gasparino is nothin but a sweaty guid.... This merger is going to be a disaster. Smaller hamburgers, no milk?? Is this a joke?
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 2:23PM
@2:16 -
Or he could be trying to prevent a run on Morgan similar to the run on Lehman driven by rumors that the debt at Bear is worse than feared. I know I heard that mentioned on Squawk Box this morning by someone when the GS results hit.
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 2:27PM
What a prick.
He gets backstopped all the way, hedges and fumbles and blubbers while Bear goes to the wall for a second time in 10 days all because JPM hesistates and the market smells a corpse.Then he steps on his dick and has to offer $10 to shore up confidence in the viability of the business,all the time he's crying crocodile tears.That Bear managing director who angrily called it a rape to Dimon's face surely pegged this greaseball.
Paulson gift wraps BSC and the fucker Dimon doesn't even have the decency to shut his piehole about how good the screwing was.You can't take the bridge and tunnel out of this mook, can you? Don't eat the souvlaki,Jamie, it might be poisoned....
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 2:32PM
JP/=charity dood. why would anyone get involved if it wasn't going to be profitable?
Posted by HAM05 , Jun 17, 2008 2:36PM
2:27 - agreed. moreover, we can extend this argument to all greeks, sheep fucking motherfuckers. hope they never win another soccer game, ever.
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 2:40PM
JPM was looking at paying in the mid 20's,until Paulson demanded his idea of a "moral hazard", which was a burial price.
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 2:42PM
CNBC senior soppressata correspondent? In the words of Paulie 'Walnuts' Gualtieri: "Ohhhh!"
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 3:16PM
So essentially we now have a market price on a "moral hazard", courtesy of Mr. Paulson. Leave it is a former GS to put a price on what was previously unthinkable. For about $15 billion, you can do whatever the hell you want without fear of retribution - slaughter 500 chickens and screw a beagle?
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 3:20PM
butchered 400 chickens and slaughtered a beagle - my bad
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 3:40PM
ugh, let's be real, this deal is a disaster for all parties. any takers on JPM @ $39??
the whole racket peaked with vaynor.
maybe bess can start covering politics or new jersey bodybuilding or belmar lifestyle 08.
-retail
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 3:43PM
It will take time, but the day will come when this self-entitled Dimon and CEOs like him will end up behind bars. Everyone is getting fu..ed: employees of these firms lose their jobs (and clearly not only bankers), homeowners lose their houses, people in general lose life savings, etc.. This guy makes jokes? there's absolutely nothing to joke about. Send all these CEOs to jail, sell their assets and their kids trust funds and use the money to fund public schools, health care, etc.. The next president should do this, before the whole system collapses..
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 3:44PM
Pretty good evisceration of Dimon, guest @2:27pm. I wonder why he would have said something like that? After all, there were some Bear alumnae in the audience, possibly even some who had their pockets picked by the $10 a share steal.
Why do Wall Street CEOs seem to have a tendency towards crass self-promotion?
On another subject, although there were some early years in Queens, Dimon was raised in Manhattan, so don't see the "bridge and tunnel" argument.
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 3:49PM
guys, i dont know what all the pissing and moaning is about...bear was well known to be the cheapest firm on the street! maybe things changed a bit once ace stepped out, but when he was around they used to count the number of staples or paper clips (memory failing) that each employee was given.
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 3:50PM
guys, i dont know what all the pissing and moaning is about...bear was well known to be the cheapest firm on the street! maybe things changed a bit once ace stepped out, but when he was around they used to count the number of staples or paper clips (memory failing) that each employee was given.
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 3:50PM
guys, i dont know what all the pissing and moaning is about...bear was well known to be the cheapest firm on the street! maybe things changed a bit once ace stepped out, but when he was around they used to count the number of staples or paper clips (memory failing) that each employee was given.
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 3:50PM
You know, the article says Steve Black, one of the heads of the investment bank, actually made the remark about the share price.
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 4:05PM
Hey, John Carney! I think your headline may be inaccurate and unfair! Jamie Dimon didn't say that JP Morgan bought Bear Stearns cheap, according to CNBC, Steve Black said that.
Posted by Riskybusiness , Jun 17, 2008 4:16PM
@3:43 Brezhnev called and wants his diatribe back. If you want to live in a free-market economy you need to take some bad with all that good.
On the Steve Black front:
He hates Bear with a passion. He has ever since Bear didn't strap one on during the LTCM bail-out.
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 4:25PM
No one knows what is going on but now more people know that no one knows what is going on. Only opinions are real.
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 4:40PM
Blackie hates everyone ... and similiar statements were made about buying Amaranth assets by Jamie ... any word on that lawsuit?
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 4:45PM
Charlie looks like my shoeshine boy
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 4:50PM
I'll miss the burgers in the cafeteria at Bear ...... I lost tons of money , but I'll miss the burgers more
Posted by guest , Jun 17, 2008 5:31PM
Speaking of bear, I highly recommend this: http://www.break.com/index/awareness-test.html
Posted by guest , Jun 18, 2008 12:29AM
Jamie Dimon is simply disgusting.