Mayor: City Will Try To Help Bear Stearns, JPMorgan Chase
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The buyout of Bear Stearns Cos. by JPMorgan Chase & Co. averted “a major financial crisis,” at least temporarily, and hopefully permanently, Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday.
Mr. Bloomberg said he didn’t know how well taxpayers would come out of the near-collapse of the fifth-largest investment bank in the country, but said he knows that, “if they hadn’t done this, the taxpayers of this country would have suffered.”
Mr. Bloomberg was responding to a question from a reporter in Albany about the impact of the bank’s meltdown on taxpayers.
Mr. Bloomberg said he felt sorry for people who had investments in Bear Stearns and sorry for the bank’s employees. He said the city would do everything it could to help JPMorgan absorb Bear Stearns and keep the bank’s jobs and economic activity in the city.
He said he spoke yesterday morning with the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan, Jamie Dimon, whom he called a longtime friend.
Mr. Bloomberg said Mr. Dimon would be his top pick for someone who could take on the challenge of combining Bear Stearns with another bank.
