The chairman of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, was receptive [to the agreement to sell shares of his company to the government], saying he thought the deal looked pretty good once he ran the numbers through his head.
We loves us some Jamie Dimon (congratulations on beating expectations this morning, btw, we're not ashamed to admit that we were estimating a 99% drop in third quarter profits), and that's why we're actually going to take the contrarian view on this one and say its not a harbinger of terrible things come (and it's not like he can acquire Jimmy Cayne's bong water again) but the new direction of banking, for the betterment of the industry. Yeah, he had a gun pointed to his head but had obviously done his due diligence already, in the 30 seconds between reading the terms and Bald threatening in no uncertain terms to palm his skull like a basketball if he didn't sign on the dotted line. This would be the same DD that went into BAC's acquisition of asbestos-riddled Countrywide, Joe Lewis's decision to float Jimmy Cayne some money around March, the Germans transfer of a bunch o' bills to Lehman the day it filed for bankruptcy, and Steve Cohen's "What are friends for" loan to Gary Busey a few eons ago during a weekend in AC (which the Buse would really be doing the big guy a solid if he could pay back stat).
Drama Behind a $250 Billion Banking Deal [NYT]
Posted by guest, Oct 15, 2008 11:02AM
Too incomprehensible. Didn't read.