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The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. was an American investment bank, securities trading, and brokerage firm that failed in 2008 during the 2007–2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession. After its closure it was subsequently sold to JPMorgan Chase.
- What Was Bear Stearns?
- Understanding Bear Stearns
- The Bear Stearns Hedge Fund Collapse
- JPMorgan Chase Buys Bear Stearns' Assets
- Lehman Brothers Collapse
- The Bottom Line
- GeneratedCaptionsTabForHeroSec
Bear Stearns was a global investment bank located in New York City that collapsed during the 2008 financial crisis. The bank was heavily exposed to mortgage-backed securitiesthat turned into toxic assets when the underlying loans began to default. Bear Stears was ultimately sold to JPMorgan Chase at a fraction of its pre-crisis value.
The Bear Stearns company was founded in 1923 and survived the Stock Market Crash of 1929, becoming a global investment bank with branches around the world. Competent management and risk-taking saw Bear Stearns continue to grow with the global economy. It was one of the many firms to embrace Lewis Ranieri'ssecuritization of debt to create new financ...
The hedge funds using these strategies posted massive losses that required them to be bailed out internally, costing the company several billion upfront and then additional billion-dollar losses in writedownsthroughout the year. This was bad news for Bear Stearns, but the company had a market cap of $20 billion, so the losses were considered unfort...
With insufficient liquidity to open its doors, Bear Stearns approached the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for a cash loan of $25 billion. When that was denied, JPMorgan Chase agreed to buy Bear Stearns for $2 a share, with the Federal Reserve guaranteeing $30 billion in mortgage-backed securities. The final price was ultimately raised to $10 a sh...
The illiquidity that Bear Stearns faced due to its exposure to securitized debt exposed troubles at other investment banks, as well. Many of the biggest banks were heavily exposed to this sort of investment, including Lehman Brothers, a major lender of subprime mortgages. By 2007, Lehman Brothers held $111 billion in real-estate assets and securiti...
Formerly one of the largest investment banks on Wall Street, the collapse of Bear Stearns is now regarded as a cautionary tale against corporate greed and the whims of the free market. In the housing bubble of the early 2000s, Bear Stearns leaned heavily into mortgage-backed securities, vastly underestimating the risks of the subprime housing marke...
Learn how Bear Stearns, a global investment bank, failed during the 2008 financial crisis due to its exposure to mortgage-backed securities. Find out how JPMorgan Chase bought Bear Stearns, what happened to its investors, and what role deregulation played in the collapse.
Sep 30, 2018 · The collapse of Bear Stearns in 2008 was stunning, both for how fast it happened and because Jimmy Cayne, who had led the bank through years of success, was apparently asleep at the wheel.
Jan 19, 2018 · Learn how the investment bank Bear Stearns, one of the first casualties of the subprime mortgage crisis, avoided bankruptcy by selling to J.P. Morgan Chase for $2 per share in March 2008. Find out the causes, consequences and sources of this historic event.
- Missy Sullivan
Oct 30, 2021 · Bear Stearns was an investment bank that collapsed and was bailed out in March 2008. Why it collapsed, details of the bailout.
- Kimberly Amadeo
Nov 9, 2022 · Learn how Bear Stearns, a leading investment bank, failed in 2008 amid the global financial crisis. Explore the role of its two hedge funds, the subprime mortgage market, the liquidity crunch and the JPMorgan acquisition.
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Apr 27, 2021 · Learn how two Bear Stearns hedge funds failed in 2007 due to leveraged credit strategies, subprime mortgage-backed securities, and credit default swaps. Find out the key mistakes, the timeline, and the impact of the crisis.
