Race Against Time

Bear had continued to deteriorate in the past week and had the capacity to threaten the entire financial system. So I called Jamie Dimon and gave him my blessing. BearБЂ™s shareholders would vote on May 29 to approve, overwhelmingly, the $10-a-share offer. IБЂ™ve read through old newspaper reports and recently published books about the Bear weekend. None of them quite captures our race against time or how fortunate we were to have JPMorgan emerge as a buyer that agreed to preserve BearБЂ™s economic value by guaranteeing its trading obligations until the deal closed. We knew we needed to sell the company because the government had no power to put in capital to ensure the solvency of an investment bank. Because we had only one buyer and little time for due diligence, we had little negotiating leverage. Throughout the process, the market was determined to call our bluff. Clients and counterparties were going to leave; Bear was going to disintegrate if we didnБЂ™t act. And even though many people thought Jamie Dimon had gotten a great deal, the Bear transaction remained very shaky to the end ...»