Posted on 03/24/2008 6:42:43 AM PDT by jdm
The weirdness on Wall Street continues. The world’s greatest fire sale has turned into something of a fiasco for JP Morgan, who thought they had Bear Stearns wrapped up in a bow by the Fed at $2 per share. However, the deal has started unraveling thanks to angry BSC shareholders, and JPM now has quintupled its offer to $10 per share:
The sweetened offer is intended to win over stockholders who vowed to fight the original fire-sale deal, struck only a week ago at the behest of the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department.
Under the terms being discussed, JPMorgan would pay $10 a share in stock for Bear, up from its initial offer of $2 a share — a figure that represented a mere one-fifteenth of Bear’s going market price.
The Fed, which must approve any new deal, was balking at the new offer price on Sunday night after several days of frantic, secret negotiations, these people said. As a result, it was still possible the renegotiated deal might be postponed or collapse entirely, said these people, who were granted anonymity because of their confidentiality agreements.
If the Fed were to reject the new proposal, it could set off a furor among shareholders of both firms that the government was preventing them from making a fair deal.
The Fed may have caused some of the problem itself. Its new $200 billion lending facility could have been used by Bear Stearns to reverse some of the bad paper it has acquired. That has shareholders who bought BSC when it rode high wondering why they need to sell their assets at 6 cents on the dollar now.
They especially object to the Fed’s pushing of the $2 share price after working with JPM to guarantee $30 billion of BSC’s worst-performing assets. BSC shareholders ask why the Fed simply didn’t offer that guarantee to BSC instead, and why they forced such a low price for the deal. The answer — that the Fed didn’t want to be seen bailing out Bear Stearns and especially the management that created its crisis — hasn’t satisfied the people holding nearly-worthless BSC shares. They feel as though they have to sacrifice for the Fed’s need to save face.
The irony, of course, is that without this deal, the shareholders would have had no value at all. Bear Stearns would have sunk under the red ink of its bad paper, and instead of 6 cents on the dollar, the only value the shares would have had would be as kindling for a warm fire in a winter cabin. But the structure of the bailout left the obvious question of why the Fed had acted in such a Deus ex machina manner, picking winners and losers with what looks like a hefty dollop of capriciousness. Why not just provide the same guarantees to BSC contingent on the removal of the board and chief executives, for instance?
This is the problem with muscular government intervention in markets. Even though BSC deserved bankruptcy for its terrible management in the marketplace, the fact that the government (or its auxiliary in the Fed) determined the winners and losers makes it political rather than the natural result of gross incompetence. The problem with the increased share price is that it makes the Fed action more clearly a bailout of BSC shareholders, and the Fed’s own guarantees make a higher share price inevitable. (via Tom Maguire, who has more thoughts).
More please!
Rescind the offer and let em suffer!
Are all Bear Stearns shareholders living in New Orleans by any chance?
First they marked it down 95% now they mark it up 500%. Cool. They will still pay less than 30 cents on the dollar for it.
Under the terms being discussed, JPMorgan would pay $10 a share in stock for Bear, up from its initial offer of $2 a share — a figure that represented a mere one-fifteenth of Bear’s going recent market price.
The answer is because BSC isn't a member of the Federal Reserve system. Hot Air indeed.
Stupid BSC shareholders. Take what you can get, or get nothing at all.
“First they marked it down 95% now they mark it up 500%. Cool. They will still pay less than 30 cents on the dollar for it.”
And the Fed will be non-recourse financing the deal in favor of JPM. Just incredible.
” . . .and JPM now has quintupled its offer to $10 per share:” 4x2=10,?
:)
quint = 5
quad =4
If you’re like me you just need more coffee.
B^)
The nationalization of the mortgage market is proceeding at something like a $50 billion a day pace. And no, they don’t take weekends off, in fact they’re busier on weekends, LOL.
You can buy any dip in the stock market with a blindfold on from now until the end of the month.
Thank you. Lazy eyes for sure.
Apparently, they think Bear holds more than $10 a share worth of value. Rescinding the offer means they will be turning down what they perceive is an opportunity to make money. If they thought it was only worth a little more than $2 a share, they would not have raised it to $10 a share, right?
They’re even trading BSC up to $12 now, LOL. Why not? There’s apparently no shortage of money in this game. Any bank near insolvency need only squeal like a stuck pig and the Fed will back them up.
As I said, the time for overanalysis is over, the stock market is likely to put on 500 more DJ points between now and the EOQ. Party like it’s 1999, just make sure you buy the most troubled companies you can find, LOL.
JPMorgan should have figured from the beginning that shafting hundreds of people worth millions of dollars was not going to be the easiest thing to accomplish. That said, it wasn’t much of a shaft. BSC was bankrupt.
“JP Morgan: We want to pay more for Bear Stearns ($10/share vs. $2/share)”
This bump-up in a purchase recalls a bit of J.P. Morgan history
(or at least a good urban legend).
One TV documentary on Andrew Carnegie mentioned a meeting he had
with Morgan soon after Carnegie had sold his interests to Morgan’s group
in the largest personal financial tranaction to date.
I can’t remember the exact numbers, but supposed Carnegie mused that
“I should have asked for XXX million more dollars before I sold out
to your firm.”
Morgan replied (in so many words), “You should have because we would
have paid that much extra.”
I just read that quote in “Think and Grow Rich.”
If I remember the quote, they paid $400 million, and would have paid $500 million.
Chart 1
Chart 1 reveals the linear connection between the Rothschilds and the Bank of England, and the London banking houses which ultimately control the Federal Reserve Banks through their stockholdings of bank stock and their subsidiary firms in New York. The two principal Rothschild representatives in New York, J. P. Morgan Co., and Kuhn,Loeb & Co. were the firms which set up the Jekyll Island Conference at which the Federal Reserve Act was drafted, who directed the subsequent successful campaign to have the plan enacted into law by Congress, and who purchased the controlling amounts of stock in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 1914. These firms had their principal officers appointed to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Federal Advisory Council in 1914. In 1914 a few families (blood or business related) owning controlling stock in existing banks (such as in New York City) caused those banks to purchase controlling shares in the Federal Reserve regional banks. Examination of the charts and text in the House Banking Committee Staff Report of August, 1976 and the current stockholders list of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks show this same family control.
N.M. Rothschild , London - Bank of England
______________________________________
| |
| J. Henry Schroder
| Banking | Corp.
| |
Brown, Shipley - Morgan Grenfell - Lazard - |
& Company & Company Brothers |
| | | |
--------------------| -------| | |
| | | | | |
Alex Brown - Brown Bros. - Lord Mantagu - Morgan et Cie -- Lazard ---|
& Son | Harriman Norman | Paris Bros |
| | / | N.Y. |
| | | | | |
| Governor, Bank | J.P. Morgan Co -- Lazard ---|
| of England / N.Y. Morgan Freres |
| 1924-1938 / Guaranty Co. Paris |
| / Morgan Stanley Co. | /
| / | \Schroder Bank
| / | Hamburg/Berlin
| / Drexel & Company /
| / Philadelphia /
| / /
| / Lord Airlie
| / /
| / M. M. Warburg Chmn J. Henry Schroder
| | Hamburg --------- marr. Virginia F. Ryan
| | | grand-daughter of Otto
| | | Kahn of Kuhn Loeb Co.
| | |
| | |
Lehman Brothers N.Y -------------- Kuhn Loeb Co. N. Y.
| | --------------------------
µ
| | | |
8
| | | |
Lehman Brothers - Mont. Alabama Solomon Loeb Abraham Kuhn
| | __|______________________|_________
Lehman-Stern, New Orleans Jacob Schiff/Theresa Loeb Nina Loeb/Paul Warburg
------------------------- | | |
| | Mortimer Schiff James Paul Warburg
_____________|_______________/ |
| | | | |
Mayer Lehman | Emmanuel Lehman \
| | | \
Herbert Lehman Irving Lehman \
| | | \
Arthur Lehman \ Phillip Lehman John Schiff/Edith Brevoort Baker
/ | Present Chairman Lehman Bros
/ Robert Owen Lehman Kuhn Loeb - Granddaughter of
/ | George F. Baker
| / |
| / |
| / Lehman Bros Kuhn Loeb (1980)
| / |
| / Thomas Fortune Ryan
| | |
| | |
Federal Reserve Bank Of New York |
|||||||| |
______National City Bank N. Y. |
| | |
| National Bank of Commerce N.Y ---|
| | \
| Hanover National Bank N.Y. \
| | \
| Chase National Bank N.Y. \
| |
| |
Shareholders - National City Bank - N.Y. |
----------------------------------------- |
| /
James Stillman /
Elsie m. William Rockefeller /
Isabel m. Percy Rockefeller /
William Rockefeller Shareholders - National Bank of Commerce N. Y.
J. P. Morgan -----------------------------------------------
M.T. Pyne Equitable Life - J.P. Morgan
Percy Pyne Mutual Life - J.P. Morgan
J.W. Sterling H.P. Davison - J. P. Morgan
NY Trust/NY Edison Mary W. Harriman
Shearman & Sterling A.D. Jiullard - North British Merc. Insurance
| Jacob Schiff
| Thomas F. Ryan
| Paul Warburg
| Levi P. Morton - Guaranty Trust - J. P. Morgan
|
|
Shareholders - First National Bank of N.Y.
-------------------------------------------
J.P. Morgan
George F. Baker
George F. Baker Jr.
Edith Brevoort Baker
US Congress - 1946-64
|
|
|
|
|
Shareholders - Hanover National Bank N.Y.
------------------------------------------
James Stillman
William Rockefeller
|
|
|
|
|
Shareholders - Chase National Bank N.Y.
---------------------------------------
George F. Baker
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