http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/jpmorgan_bear_stearnsBy JOE BEL BRUNO and MADLEN READ, AP Business Writers 1 minute ago
NEW YORK - JPMorgan Chase said Sunday it will acquire rival Bear Stearns for a bargain-basement $236.2 million — or $2 a share — a stunning collapse for one of the world's largest and most storied investment banks.
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The last-minute buyout was aimed at averting a Bear Stearns bankruptcy and a spreading crisis of confidence in the global financial system.
The Federal Reserve and the U.S. government swiftly approved the all-stock deal, showing the urgency of completing the deal before world markets opened.
Bear Stearns shares closed Friday at $30 a share. At their peak, the shares traded at $159.36.
The Fed will provide special financing to JPMorgan Chase for the deal, JPMorgan Chase said. The central bank has agreed to fund up to $30 billion of Bear Stearns' less liquid assets. Risky bets on securities tied to subprime mortgages — loans given to customers with poor credit history — crippled Bear Stearns, the nations' fifth-largest investment bank.
At almost the same time as the deal for control of Bear Stearns was announced, the Federal Reserve said it approved a cut in its lending rate to banks to 3.25 percent from 3.50 percent and created another lending facility for big investment banks. The central bank's official meeting is on Tuesday. Before the emergency move to lower the discount rate, which is the rate at which banks lend each other money, the Fed was widely expected to again cut its headline rate by as much as a full point to 2 percent.
The announcements from both the Fed and JPMorgan come ahead of what some analysts expected to be a brutal day for global stocks. Already, before the announcements, New Zealand's markets opened drastically lower — then began to recover after the deal was unveiled.
"This is going to go down in very historic terms," said Peter Dunay, chief investment strategist for New York-based Meridian Equity Partners. "This is about credit being overextended, and how bad it is for major financial institutions and for individuals. This is why we're probably heading into a recession."
A collapse of Bear Stearns could have created a further crisis of confidence in world financial markets amid a deepening credit crunch.
JPMorgan's acquisition of Bear Stearns represents roughly 1 percent of what the investment bank was worth just 16 days ago.
Topic: Another sign of a US recession, JPMorgan to buy Bear for $2 a share (Read 1827 times)