This is the one we’ve been waiting for.
James Cayne and Alan Schwartz, who served as chief executive officers at Bear Stearns before the firm collapsed in 2008, will testify on May 5 along with former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox, the commission said today in an e-mail statement.
Since recent events have demonstrated the government’s inability to ask the right questions, and we want to actually get something out of this thing, let’s come up with a few now to send their way. I’ll start: Mr. Cayne. When confronted about the fact that your office smelled like pot, you attributed the scent of marijuana to “a new leather couch in my office,” and later demanded a fellow executive come take a whiff, asking him, and I quote, “does the couch smell like pot or not?” Did you realize at the time just how genius that was or, in a rare moment of self-awareness combined with a seriously paranoid trip,* did you sweat bullets figuring no one would buy it?
Geithner, Bear Stearns Executives to Testify for Crisis Panel [Bloomberg via DI]
*That’s the last time you buy from a degenerate first year in the alley behind 383 Madison.
Former Bear Stearns CEO Alan Schwartz has resurfaced after what has surely been a fun-filled year or so. After watching 383 Madison fall to the House of Dimon across the street, attending congressional roastings, and taking on a leading role in the books House of Cards and Street Fighters, surely the king of the former Bear empire was going to come out of this rejuvenated and ready to prove that it was Jimmy Cayne’s fault after all. Mr. Schwartz’s new destination is, in the words of the Wall St. Journal, “little known Guggenheim Capital Partners LLC”. Ok- the Journal isn’t too big on Guggenheim. Who cares? Alan Schwartz is surely fired up and ready to go. After non-stop viewing of Miracle and every Rocky movie, he must be as amped as a rodeo bull ready to burst out of the corral. He has probably rehearsed his own Braveheart-inspired war cry for his return thousands of times. So what exactly did the man himself tell the Journal about his return to silence his critics and fire up the troops, “Fate has dealt me an opportunity to start from scratch”. Forget ‘they may take our lives but they’ll never take out freedom’, ‘fate has dealt me an opportunity to start from scratch’ will go down as one of the defining motivational quotes of our time.
Any Wall Street veteran worth his salt knows that the most important weapon with which to line his arsenal is a fall guy. Inevitably he’s going to fuck enough shit up that someone’s going to have to get fired and wouldn’t it be a shame if it were him? Holding senior execs accountable for their own gaffes and pratfalls would be as patently absurd as Goldman’s prop desk just up and deciding to stop front running clients. Luckily, former Bear Stearns CEO Alan Schwartz knows of this rule, and is planning on buddy system’ing it up at his next gig. The Post reports that Schwartz will be taking erstwhile Bear MD Richard Metrick with him upon leaving Bearpont Morgan Chase in August. The duo doesn’t know exactly where it’s going, but is said to be mulling offers from Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Warburg Pincus, and KKR. Other requirements Schwartz rumored to be putting in his next contract are included but not limited to immunity following the takeover of whatever firm he takes down, and peanut butter M&M’s.
Bear’s Schwartz Mulling Job Offers [NYP]
Like many of the former Bear Stearns workers not currently employed, erstwhile CEO Alan Schwartz will be taking the summer off to plot his next career move. (Things are slightly different for Schwartz in that he has actual job offers, but whatevs.) Supposedly he’s deciding between staying with the newly formed Bearpont Morgan Chase, where the slot for a “We are drowning in liquidity” guy remains unfilled, or heading over to private equity, possibly with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. According to the Post, Schwartz has told friends that he’s being “judicious” about the decision, though that quote was surely taken out of context and has less to do with Big Al’s career trajectory than a late season summer share, having missed the deadline to join Jimmy Cayne at bridge camp.
Bear’s Schwartz To Mull Bids Over Summer [NYP]
