Bear Stearns - Overview

Overview

Bear Stearns was founded as an equity trading house on May Day 1923 by Joseph Bear, Robert Stearns and Harold Mayer with $500,000 in capital. Internal tensions quickly arose among the three founders. The firm survived the Wall Street Crash of 1929 without laying off any employees and by 1933 opened its first branch office in Chicago. In 1955, the firm opened its first international office in Amsterdam.

In 1985, Bear Stearns became a publicly traded company. It served corporations, institutions, governments and individuals. The company's business included corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, institutional equities, fixed income sales & risk management, trading and research, private client services, derivatives, foreign exchange and futures sales and trading, asset management and custody services. Through Bear Stearns Securities Corp., it offered global clearing services to broker dealers, prime broker clients and other professional traders, including securities lending. Bear Stearns was also known for one of the most widely read market intelligence pieces on the street, known as the "Early Look at the Market - Bear Stearns Morning View."

Bear Stearns' World Headquarters was located at 383 Madison Avenue, between East 46th Street and East 47th Street in Manhattan. The company employed more than 15,500 people worldwide. The firm was headquartered in New York City with offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Irvine, San Francisco, St. Louis, Whippany, New Jersey; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Internationally the firm had offices in London, Beijing, Dublin, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Lugano, Milan, São Paulo, Mumbai, Shanghai, Singapore and Tokyo.

In 2005-2007, Bear Stearns was recognized as the "Most Admired" securities firm in Fortune's "America's Most Admired Companies" survey, and second overall in the security firm section. The annual survey is a prestigious ranking of employee talent, quality of risk management and business innovation. This was the second time in three years that Bear Stearns had achieved this "top" distinction.

On March 17, 2008, JP Morgan Chase offered to acquire Bear Stearns at a price of $2 per share or $236 million. JPMorgan Chase completed its acquisition of Bear Stearns on May 30, 2008 at the renegotiated price of $10 per share. The U.S. Federal Reserve rewarded Bear Stearns' shareholders in the deal by taking responsibility for $29 billion in toxic assets in Bear Stearns' portfolio.