The Bear Facts

I walked by the Bear Stearns office tower yesterday and there was quite a commotion. A TV crew was on the scene and a hoard of folks had gathered around a large cardboard illustration (like what might be propped up for a kid’s Bar Mitzvah or someone’s anniversary party) of former Bear CEO James Cayne. The idea was that Bear employees would walk out of the building, sign the poster-board and then the artist would auction it off on E-Bay.

I was mesmerized by the board. I leaned in to read all of the comments, some of which can not be printed here. What was interesting was the vast divergence of feelings that were shared. Yes, there were the expletives and the bitter salvos (these were probably the people who purchased t-shirts 5 feet away that said, “I worked at Bear Stearns for 20 years and all I got was Cayned!”), but more often, there was nostalgia. “Thanks for the great years, Jimmy!”, “It was an amazing ride” and “I wish it did not end on March 17th!”

All of this was interesting in light of the three-part series about the collapse of Bear Stearns that was published this week in the Wall Street Journal. If you have not read it, I urge you to do so (www.wsj.com). Reporter Kate Kelly’s attention to detail and ability to paint a vivid story is remarkable. Like a fine journalist, Ms. Kelly is able to rivet the reader, even though we know the ending of the story.

Each participant in the deal was painted with multiple layers, so that it was impossible to come away with a simple “they are all a bunch of thieves” attitude. In fact, the overriding sense I had was that while there were lots of mistakes along the way, the guys running Bear Stearns at the time were desperately seeking ways to save the company. The fact that they allowed themselves to get into the situation in the first place was bad, but each seemed to truly care about the organization.
That is the sentiment that was echoed by my lunch date, who has worked at Bear for 18 years. He recounted his personal experience with me of that fateful week in March – the initial fear that as a 56-year old, he would have to find another job; that he was just another “dopey boomer” who had not saved enough; and then acceptance that although he loved the company, they had screwed up and paid a terrible price. When we returned from lunch, he checked his Blackberry “Well, the deal is done…15 minutes later, the 85-year old Bear is history now.” And those are the Bear facts.