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The Banker Who Saved Wall Street
How JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon bailed out Bear Stearns and the federal government—and lived to turn a profit.
From "Last Man Standing" by Duff McDonald. Copyright © 2009 by Duff McDonald. To be published by Simon and Schuster, October 2009. Reprinted by permission.
On the morning of Sept. 18, 2008, the phone rang in Jamie Dimon's office on the 48th floor of JPMorgan Chase's New York headquarters. It was Hank Paulson, the secretary of the Treasury, who for the second time in six months had a pressing question: would Dimon be interested in acquiring the floundering investment bank Morgan Stanley—at no cost whatsoever?
The call came at a tumultuous moment. Stocks had fallen 27 percent between Aug. 29 and Oct. 10. Lehman Brothers had already failed, Merrill Lynch had been sold to Bank of America, and AIG had received an emergency loan of $85 billion from the federal government. The only remaining question was whether it would be Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs to fail next. The government was desperately seeking to stave off a total wipeout of Wall Street. And here was Paulson offering Dimon the chance to own Morgan Stanley for absolutely nothing. At the government's urging, Dimon had agreed to take over Bear Stearns in March in a whirlwind 48-hour deal, a transaction that established Dimon as the government's banker of last resort. "Some are coming to Washington for help," Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., later said. "Others are coming to Washington to help."
....
But in the midst of the crisis, regulators seemed to repeatedly rely on a simple tactic: calling Jamie Dimon and asking him to step in.
As we emerge from the throes of the financial crisis, it has become clear that not only is Jamie Dimon the government's banker of choice, JPMorgan Chase is increasingly customers' bank of choice as well.
,...
http://www.newsweek.com/id/215177/page/1
How JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon bailed out Bear Stearns and the federal government—and lived to turn a profit.
From "Last Man Standing" by Duff McDonald. Copyright © 2009 by Duff McDonald. To be published by Simon and Schuster, October 2009. Reprinted by permission.
On the morning of Sept. 18, 2008, the phone rang in Jamie Dimon's office on the 48th floor of JPMorgan Chase's New York headquarters. It was Hank Paulson, the secretary of the Treasury, who for the second time in six months had a pressing question: would Dimon be interested in acquiring the floundering investment bank Morgan Stanley—at no cost whatsoever?
The call came at a tumultuous moment. Stocks had fallen 27 percent between Aug. 29 and Oct. 10. Lehman Brothers had already failed, Merrill Lynch had been sold to Bank of America, and AIG had received an emergency loan of $85 billion from the federal government. The only remaining question was whether it would be Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs to fail next. The government was desperately seeking to stave off a total wipeout of Wall Street. And here was Paulson offering Dimon the chance to own Morgan Stanley for absolutely nothing. At the government's urging, Dimon had agreed to take over Bear Stearns in March in a whirlwind 48-hour deal, a transaction that established Dimon as the government's banker of last resort. "Some are coming to Washington for help," Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., later said. "Others are coming to Washington to help."
....
But in the midst of the crisis, regulators seemed to repeatedly rely on a simple tactic: calling Jamie Dimon and asking him to step in.
As we emerge from the throes of the financial crisis, it has become clear that not only is Jamie Dimon the government's banker of choice, JPMorgan Chase is increasingly customers' bank of choice as well.
,...
http://www.newsweek.com/id/215177/page/1
are they joking ?
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