Bear Stearns: A Year Later
一年前的3月14日，贝尔斯登公司(Bear Stearns Cos.)走到了生命的最后一刻。Brandon Thibodeaux for The Wall Street Journal这家纽约的证券公司虽然从上世纪的大萧条中幸存了下来，却在按揭贷款危机中一步步走向崩溃。心怀忧惧的客户纷纷逃离，迫使联邦政府向贝尔斯登抛去一条特别的救生索，允许该公司直接向政府借贷。仅仅两天内，人们已担心贝尔斯登将不得不以每股2美元的价格将自身贱卖给摩根大通公司(JPMorgan Chase & Co.)，2.36亿美元的售价仅为该公司当时市值的7%。出售价后来抬升到每股10美元，最终售价为15亿美元。贝尔斯登股价的下跌对其员工而言尤其残酷。他们拥有该公司三分之一的股份，这些股份往往是员工在公司长期任职期间逐渐积累下来的。作为一家不畏强手的证券公司，贝尔斯登好斗的企业文化鼓励员工持有本公司股票。贝尔斯登的14,000名员工中，目前只有约5,000人在摩根大通找到了工作，而后者由于接手贝尔斯登以及经济普遍陷入低迷，自己也裁减了约2,000人。那些被摩根大通留用的贝尔斯登员工正在努力适应一家商业银行的刻板生活。那些未被留用的员工许多仍未找到工作。而贝尔斯登的消亡则使其他人无论在职业生涯还是个人生活方面都发生了一次人生信念上的飞跃。以下就是一些贝尔斯登前员工的个人故事。Getty Images艾伦·施瓦茨艾伦·施瓦茨前首席执行长贝尔斯登垮台后，现年58岁的该公司首席执行长保持着低调。自从去年4月向参议院一个委员会表示他做什么其实都无法挽救贝尔斯登的命运后，施瓦茨一直拒绝公开发表评论。在贝尔斯登被摩根大通接手后他又在公司逗留了一段时间，以评估被摩根大通留用的贝尔斯登员工在新公司受到的待遇，其间他拒绝了摩根大通董事长兼首席执行长詹姆士·戴蒙(James Dimon)提供的一个职位。在劳工节后不久，施瓦茨前往英国银行Rothschild Inc.就职，他的朋友克里斯托弗·劳伦斯(Christopher Lawrence)担任这家银行的副董事长。施瓦茨在该行的新工作是与他在贝尔斯登担任首席投资银行家时发展的那些老客户保持联系，其中包括微软(Microsoft Corp.)Verizon Communications Inc.和华特-迪士尼公司(Walt Disney Co.)。施瓦茨最近出任了纽约市扶贫慈善机构罗宾汉基金会(Robin Hood Foundation)的董事长。记者没能联系到他，无法获得他的相关评论。迈克尔·阿历克希前首席风险长当阿历克希去年11月出任纽约联邦储备银行高级副行长时，博客作者们对他好一顿疾言厉语。由于他在贝尔斯登垮台前担任公司的首席风险长，因此常被人们当作发泄对该公司消亡一事不满情绪的出气筒。现年47岁的阿历克希在纽约联邦储备银行行长蒂莫西·盖特纳(Timothy Geithner)被提名担任奥巴马政府的财政部长前就与之建立了很亲密的关系。2005年，阿历克希加入了一个由盖特纳召集的业内委员会，参与拟定信贷衍生品市场的指导原则。企业债券的投资者买入信贷衍生品以对冲债券本息不能如期兑付的风险。正是信贷衍生品这项高风险业务一定程度上导致了贝尔斯登去年3月的垮台。阿历克希加入纽约联邦储备银行后供职于该行的银行监督部门，全力处理贝尔斯登垮台后出现的一系列连锁反应。他埋头于解决保险业巨头美国国际集团(American International Group Inc.)金融产品业务所引发的问题。该业务因出售信贷违约掉期而使自己背上了沉重的偿付义务。人们购买信贷违约掉期是为了对冲多种证券价格下跌所产生的风险。阿历克希现在的同事们说，他经常晚下班并且周末期间还来工作。记者没能联系到他，无法获得他的相关评论。塞谬尔·默里纳罗前首席财务长塞谬尔·默里纳罗(Samuel Molinaro)在贝尔斯登垮台前担任公司的首席财务长，据他的朋友和同事们说，默里纳罗一直拿不定主意今后的职场生涯将如何展开。在贝尔斯登被并入摩根大通时，现年51岁的默里纳罗对自己的未来感到拿不定主意。当时他把一部分精力重新投入到学校董事会的工作中。这两所学校一所是他的母校位于纽约西南的圣玻波拿文都大学(St. Bonaventure University)，另一所是他最小的两个儿子目前就读的King Low Heywood Thomas School。去年9月，默里纳罗接受了对冲基金Paulson & Co.一份非全职工作，这家基金2007年曾指控贝尔斯登试图操纵按揭贷款支持证券市场。他帮助该基金分析银行和证券公司的财务声明。这家对冲基金的负责人约翰·鲍尔森(John Paulson)说，默里纳罗曾担任贝尔斯登首席财务长的经历对公司非常有帮助。该基金2007年因作空次级按揭贷款证券而获利150亿美元，它2008年获得了更多利润。大卫·杜恩和科琳·雷特-弗拉瑟前投资顾问前贝尔斯登的投资顾问大卫·杜恩(David J. Dunn)和科琳·雷特-弗拉瑟(Korrine Leiter-Fraser)去年那个周五，当贝尔斯登突然间看上去已无法撑过这个周末时，大卫·杜恩和科琳·雷特-弗拉瑟开始在洛杉矶他俩共用的那间办公室内打包物品。这两人在贝尔斯登担任为富有客户服务的投资顾问。接下来两人猛打电话并开始盘算未来之路。周一，他们在洛杉矶建立了自己的投资业务Kingsbridge Private Wealth Management Inc.。现年30岁的雷特-弗拉瑟说，我们不想再去另一家大公司任职了，那里难保不会再发生这种事。她说，这虽然是痛苦的......但我们不得不为客户作出最好的选择。两人成立的这家公司现在管理着1亿美元资产，其中大多数属于他们在贝尔斯登时的客户。但对两人来说，到另外一个地方从头再来是很痛苦的。现年41岁的杜恩还没卖掉自己在洛杉矶的家。去年6月份当他还在工作时，杜恩和太太将全家搬去了拉斯维加斯，他说，我14岁的孩子哭闹了三周，他说自己的贝尔斯登股票亏了大概25万美元，但是这部分损失因其他资产而得到了缓冲。在离开后不久，雷特-弗拉瑟的男友就向她求了婚；她还买了一所房子。还有一个月就要结婚的雷特-弗拉瑟说道，我从未预见到会发生这一切，但最终的结果总算是不幸中的万幸了，我们都觉得自己经历了这一切后干得还算不错。詹姆斯·凯恩(James Cayne)前董事长Bloomberg News詹姆斯·凯恩凯恩对贝尔斯登遭甩卖的现实耿耿于怀。凯恩最初的想法是申请破产保护，而不是贱卖给摩根大通。紧接着，凯恩和妻子帕特里夏(Patricia)将手中的股票几乎全数抛出。当时，这些股票的价值从之前的10亿美元左右降到了6,100万美元。凯恩在去年5月最后一次股东大会上说，我个人深表歉意，我的感受不是言语能够表达的。自打那以后，凯恩就基本上淡出了公众视野。他现在可以集中精力重拾自己的爱好了，凯恩在参加竞技桥牌巡回赛时很积极，去年年底时他去了波士顿参加比赛，上个月又飞赴澳大利亚。他还花了不少时间待在自己位于新泽西海滩的家中。凯恩没有回复记者要求置评的电话。在刚刚过去的情人节，凯恩庆祝了自己75岁生日。Benjamin Thomas for The Wall Street Journal约翰·保罗约翰·保罗(John Paul)前交易员他被曾是贝尔斯登伦敦交易部裁员已有半年时间了，保罗会用早上的时间在家查看彭博资讯(Bloomberg)终端所提供的信息。他说，我怀念交易大厅的嘈杂。在贝尔斯登任职15年每天工作12小时的经验并未帮助他寻到一个新东家。去年9月份摩根大通将他裁员了。保罗有很多在贝尔斯登的老同事都还没有找到工作，他们现在定期聚会喝咖啡。现年36岁的保罗每天还是在早早起床查看金融市场行情，然后和以前的同事打电话。失业在家意味着他有更多时间在健身房锻炼身体，并陪伴六岁的儿子。他说，每天能接孩子放学是件很好的事。为了纪念贝尔斯登被政府撮合卖予摩根大通一周年，保罗计划和前同事们在伦敦金融区金丝雀码头(Canary Wharf)的Bar One搞个聚会。贝尔斯登的欧洲总部以前就设在这里。在公司倒台前，Bar One曾是交易员和贝尔斯登其他雇员下班后聚会畅饮的地方。保罗预计纪念日那天会有100多人现身，他们当中许多人都还在找工作。保罗说：整个事件使我能泰然看待金融业经历的一切。安德烈·德纳格(Andreas Dirnagl)前分析师就在收购贝尔斯登的交易宣布后不久，摩根大通分析师德纳格就在某酒店的扶梯顶部“遭遇”他在贝尔斯登的同道中人。这两位医疗保健业分析师都知道公司不会将两个人全都留下。现年41岁当时已在摩根大通工作四年的德纳格说，我们很快就意识到我们两人都是一无所知。德纳格最初信心满满，认为自己笃定成为最后唯一的赢家。然而，几周过去了，没有任何消息。后来，当他在法兰克福出席某会议时，手机响了，是老板打来的。他对德纳格说，我们的业务方向要进行调整。老板这句话的意思是，一位薪水比他低的助手将接管他的研究工作。德纳格在5月份时离开了摩根大通。在失业的最初几周，德纳格拒绝了Stephens Inc.提出的试探性建议，当时Stephens自己的医疗保健业分析师刚刚跳槽去了另一家证券公司。德纳格当时希望能用08年的夏天休个长假。这家位于阿肯色州小石城的公司还颇有点百折不挠的精神。在勉强同意见面后，德纳格签署了一份合同，同意夏天过后就来上班。在那个假期里，德纳格到德国探访了亲戚，登上了秘鲁印加遗址马丘比丘(Machu Picchu)，还把一个又一个的周三下午用来泡在电影院里。眼见华尔街在过去一年中全面裁员，德纳格说“谢天谢地Stephens还是很大刀阔斧向前推进的”。德纳格当时在摩根大通的竞争对手杰森·戈达(Jason Gurda)现在在研究机构Leerink Swann LLC中任职医疗保健业分析师。莫琳·埃诺(Maureen Ennor)前对冲基金培训师全球结算业务员埃诺2004年时离开了贝尔斯登的对冲基金业务平台，但她去年3月时还拥有公司约4.5万美元股票。她说我对贝尔斯登仍有很多怨气，我们都曾经为这家公司牺牲了很多。埃诺是有两个孩子的单身母亲。在她在贝尔斯登任职的四年间，她每天早上4点就要出门工作。她的年薪从未超过10万美元，也从未领过奖金。她回忆到，其他贝尔斯登的同事说“给100万美元都不会到旧金山分公司工作”。贝尔斯登的倒台验证了她对这家公司的恶感，让她坚信自己的离职是明智之举。现年45岁的埃诺为旧金山一家名为Channel Checkers的机构研究公司工作。埃诺现在在家办公，她每天的工作内容和在贝尔斯登时一样。埃诺本来计划将贝尔斯登的股票套现，用这笔钱送儿子上大学。她说，感谢上帝，我儿子是个美式橄榄球明星。今年秋天，埃诺的儿子将靠体育奖学金到爱荷华州达文波特市的圣安布罗斯大学(St Ambrose University)求学。与贝尔斯登一些员工蒙受的数百万美元损失相比，埃诺的损失还算小的。她说，但是对我来说，损失相当的大。她和其他5位前同事共进晚餐，聊起在贝尔斯登的时光。他们最近回忆起公司前首席执行长阿兰·格林伯格(Alan "Ace" Greenberg)发的备忘录，号召员工们节省回形针。自打离开贝尔斯登以来，埃诺就有意地在自己办公桌里囤积很多各种颜色的大个回形针。Brandon Thibodeaux for The Wall Street Journal埃里克·奥提兹埃里克·奥提兹(Eric Ortiz)前销售经理无论到了哪里，奥提兹都仍保留着贝尔斯登的部分“记忆”。奥提兹曾是贝尔斯登达拉斯住房抵押贷款业务部的销售经理。去年3月，在公司岌岌可危之际，他把带有公司标识的泰迪熊拿回家给自己的两个孩子。泰迪熊钢笔文具帽子和一些贝尔斯登的旧电子邮件散落在屋子里。他说，我有一些东西可以告诉他们，我是造成信贷危机的公司之一的一部分。我们是历史的一部分。现年35岁的奥提兹曾以为自己会在贝尔斯登呆上25年，但是却只工作了两年左右，2008年6月他在贝尔斯登的生涯就结束了。他负责管理30名贷款管理人员和处理人员，之后摩根大通把这个部门卖给了私人资本运营公司Lone Star Funds。奥提兹两周前辞职了。上周一，他开始了一份新工作，在花旗集团(Citigroup Inc.)达拉斯抵押贷款部门任销售经理。他说，他们雇我来扭转局面。一个令人鼓舞的巧合是：上周，花旗股票飙升了70%以上。奥提兹感到欣慰的是，他没有贝尔斯登的股票，也不必为找工作而举家迁移。过去的一年已经够糟糕了。他说，我一直认为自己是个坚强的人，不过这一年让我认识到了我到底有多坚强。考虑到花旗集团在想方设法地克服连续5个季度的亏损和衰退，奥提兹努力不去想这份工作是否稳定。他说，我觉得，现在没有百分之百安全的地方了。Stephen Chen前资产管理部门软件开发员Chris Ramirez for The Wall Street JournalStephen Chen一年前，Stephen Chen还在疯狂地打印贝尔斯登的财务信息，以便给潜在的买家看。在曼哈顿中城贝尔斯登总部一直工作到凌晨3点之后，6点钟他又回到办公室，吃着披萨，看到附近建筑工地上的一台起重机倒掉了。他说，我无法不意识到其中的相似性。离开贝尔斯登后，现年26岁的Chen和朋友Iris Chau发起了一个名为GreenSoul Shoes的慈善组织，他们的目标是要在5年内，让世界各地的一百万贫困孩子能穿上回收利用的鞋子。Chen和Chau是在纽约皇后区的一次龙舟赛中认识的。到目前为止，两人在曼哈顿下城区TriBeCa的一个免费办公室里经营着这个慈善组织。办公室是房地产管理公司Sunshine Suites捐赠的。项目资金部分出自他们的遣散费。还是布朗大学的本科生时，Chen就创立了一家折扣旅行服务和钮扣制作公司。他说，在贝尔斯登呆了两年后，重新点燃创业的激情，这是一种可喜的改变。Chen也丝毫不怀念在贝尔斯登早上7点上班的那段日子，从他在皇后区法拉盛的家到公司可以说是折磨人的长途跋涉。他当时的女友也在贝尔斯登工作，她早上4点半就开始一天的工作了。在摩根大通收购了贝尔斯登之后，他又呆了一段时间帮助公司过渡，之后在10月30日发出了自己最后一封工作电子邮件。他向同事发了感谢信，同时抄送Chau。她当时刚被摩根大通裁员。凯瑞·凯利(Kerri Kelly)前私人客户服务部门副主任2008年3月的第二周，贝尔斯登笼罩在不祥的传言中，凯利向“无国界医生组织”(Doctors Without Borders)的网站提交了一份工作申请。这是一个国际人道主义组织，向遭受战争饥荒和其他灾害的人提供医疗服务。6月她被摩根大通裁掉时，她已经被这个组织聘用了。休息了一个夏天之后，现年35岁的凯利开始担任该组织在格鲁吉亚第比利斯的财务和人力资源协调人。这个职位至少会持续一年时间，她挣的不及在贝尔斯登私人客户服务部门任副主任时的税后收入的10%。无国界医生组织在格鲁吉亚有好几个项目，包括向因去年俄罗斯格鲁吉亚和奥塞梯民族之间的战事而颠沛流离的人提供紧急医疗和精神疾病咨询服务。这个组织还为肺结核患者提供帮助。凯利在纽约长岛长大，接受的是土木工程师的教育，与其说她怀念自己在贝尔斯登的7年时光，不如说她更怀念因公司的崩溃而丢掉工作的同事和朋友。在从格鲁吉亚发来的一封电子邮件里，她写道，她常常想起那些丢掉了工作股票以及20年来的自我认同感的贝尔斯登老员工。她写道，不过我们都很幸运，任何人在儿科肺结核（多种药物都已失去效果）病房呆上5分钟，都会有这样的感觉。ROBIN SIDEL / KATE KELLY完结 本文涉及股票或公司document.write (truthmeter('2009年03月16日14:27', 'JPM'));摩根大通公司英文名称：JPMorgan Chase & Co.总部地点：美国上市地点：纽约证交所股票代码：JPM
One year ago today, Bear Stearns Cos. was on its last legs.Despite surviving the Great Depression, the New York securities firm was collapsing under the mortgage crisis. Worried clients were fleeing, forcing federal officials to throw Bear an extraordinary lifeline that allowed the company to borrow directly from the government.Within two days, Bear had been cornered into selling itself to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. for $2 a share, or about $236 million, barely 7% of its stock-market value at the time. The price was later raised to $10 a share, and the deal wound up costing $1.5 billion.The fall was especially brutal for Bear employees. They owned about a third of the shares, often accumulated during long careers fueled by the company's culture as a scrappy underdog that fought head-to-head against bigger, better-pedigreed firms.Out of the 14,000 employees at Bear, only about 5,000 now have jobs at J.P. Morgan, which also dismissed roughly 2,000 of its own employees as part of the takeover and broader economic downturn.The Bear employees who stuck around are adjusting to life inside a buttoned-down commercial bank. Many who lost their jobs remain unemployed. Others responded to the firm's demise by taking a leap of faith in their professional or personal life. Here are some of their stories, as compiled by Mary Pilon, Kate Kelly and Robin Sidel:Alan Schwartz Chief ExecutiveAfter Bear's demise, Alan Schwartz, the 58-year-old CEO of the firm, went out of his way to keep a low profile. Since telling a Senate committee last April that there was nothing he could have done to save Bear, Mr. Schwartz has refused to comment publicly.He stuck around while the firm was being absorbed by J.P. Morgan, declining a job offer from James Dimon, chairman and CEO of the New York bank, until he could gauge how well the acquired securities firm's employees were being treated by their new bosses.Shortly after Labor Day, Mr. Schwartz went to work for British bank Rothschild Inc., where his friend Christopher Lawrence is vice chairman. The new job lets Mr. Schwartz focus on the impressive Rolodex of clients he built as Bear's top investment banker, including Microsoft Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and Walt Disney Co.Mr. Schwartz, who couldn't be reached for comment, recently became chairman of the Robin Hood Foundation, a New York City charity that fights poverty.Figuring out how to move on has been tough on Samuel Molinaro, Bear's former chief financial officer, according to friends and associates.Mr. Molinaro, 51, wrestled with his future as Bear's operations were folded into J.P. Morgan. During that time, he redirected some of his energy to board memberships at his alma mater, St. Bonaventure University in southwestern New York, and King Low Heywood Thomas School in Stamford, Conn., where his two youngest children are students.In September, Mr. Molinaro took a part-time consulting job at Paulson & Co., a hedge-fund firm that accused Bear in 2007 of trying to manipulate the market for mortgage-backed securities. He helps analyze the financial statements of banks and brokerage firms.'His experience as CFO of Bear is very helpful to us,' says John Paulson, who runs the hedge-fund firm. It reaped $15 billion in 2007 betting against subprime mortgages and added more profits last year.Michael Alix Chief Risk OfficerBloggers weren't kind to Michael Alix when he joined the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as a senior vice president in November. His last job at Bear was chief risk officer, making him a frequent punching bag for the firm's blow-ups.Mr. Alix, 47 years old, had established a strong rapport with Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Fed before he was named Treasury secretary under President Barack Obama. In 2005, Mr. Alix was part of an industry committee convened by Mr. Geithner to develop guidelines for the credit-derivatives market. The volatile business, in which investors load up on protection against the default of a firm's debt, helped seal Bear's fate last March.As part of the New York Fed's bank-supervision division, Mr. Alix has had his hands full dealing with the dominoes sent tumbling since Bear. He is enmeshed in the problems of mammoth insurer American International Group Inc.'s financial-products business. That unit is facing crushing demands for payouts on its sale of credit-default swaps, or protection against declines in various securities.Mr. Alix's colleagues say he often lingers late at work and comes in on weekends. He couldn't be reached for comment.James Cayne ChairmanJames Cayne took the Bear's desperation sale hard. After initially pushing to file for bankruptcy rather than do a deal with J.P. Morgan, Mr. Cayne and his wife, Patricia, sold nearly all their Bear shares. By then, the stake was valued at $61 million, down from about $1 billion.'I personally apologize,' Mr. Cayne said in May at the firm's last shareholder meeting. 'Words can't describe the feelings that I feel.'Since then, Mr. Cayne has rarely been seen or heard from in public. Focusing on one of his first loves, he has been active on the competitive bridge circuit, attending a tournament in Boston late last year and traveling to Australia last month. Mr. Cayne also is spending time in his home on the New Jersey shore. He didn't return calls seeking comment.On Valentine's Day, Mr. Cayne celebrated his 75th birthday.John Paul TraderSix months after his layoff from what was Bear's trading desk in London, John Paul spends mornings clicking at a Bloomberg terminal at home. 'I miss the buzz of the trading floor,' Mr. Paul says.The 12-hour days that piled up during 15 years at Bear haven't landed him a new job since J.P. Morgan cut him loose in September. So many of his fellow traders at Bear are jobless that they meet regularly for coffee. The 36-year-old Mr. Paul talks to former colleagues every day, usually after getting up early and checking on the financial markets.Still being unemployed gives him more time at the gym and with his six-year-old son. 'It's nice to pick your kid up from school,' Mr. Paul says.To mark the first anniversary of Bear's government-engineered sale to J.P. Morgan, Mr. Paul plans to gather with former co-workers at Bar One in Canary Wharf, the section of London where the firm's European headquarters was located.Before Bear collapsed, the bar was a popular after-hours watering hole for traders and other employees. He expects more than 100 people to show up. Many of them are looking for work.'The whole thing has made me very philosophical about the industry as a whole,' he says.Andreas DirnaglAnalystShortly after Bear's sale was announced, J.P. Morgan analyst Andreas Dirnagl had an awkward encounter at the top of a hotel escalator with his counterpart in Bear's research department. The two health-care analysts knew there wouldn't be room for both of them.'We quickly figured out that neither of us knew anything,' says Mr. Dirnagl, 41, who had been at J.P. Morgan for four years.At first, Mr. Dirnagl was confident he could win a battle for the lone analyst job. But weeks passed with no news. While attending a conference in Frankfurt, his cellphone rang with a call from the boss. 'We're going in another direction with our coverage,' Mr. Dirnagl was told.Translation: A lower-paid associate was taking over his research coverage. Mr. Dirnagl left J.P. Morgan in May.A few weeks into unemployment, Mr. Dirnagl rejected feelers from Stephens Inc., which had just lost a health-care analyst to another securities firm. He wanted to take the summer off.The Little Rock, Ark., company wouldn't take no for an answer. After reluctantly agreeing to a meeting, he signed a contract that allowed him to start once summer was over. Mr. Dirnagl visited relatives in Germany, climbed Machu Picchu in Peru and spent Wednesday afternoons at the movies.Given all the job cuts on Wall Street in the past year, 'thank goodness' Stephens was aggressive, he says. His downsized Bear rival, Jason Gurda, now works as an analyst at Leerink Swann LLC, a research firm specializing in the health-care industry.Maureen EnnorHedge-fund trainer, global clearing deskMaureen Ennor left Bear's hedge-fund desk in San Francisco in 2004. But she still had about $45,000 in company stock last March. 'I still have such animosity,' she says. 'We all sacrificed so much for Bear.'A single mother of two children, Ms. Ennor left for work at 4 a.m. During her four years at the firm, she never made more than $100,000 a year or got a bonus, she says. Other Bear employees told her they 'wouldn't take $1 million to work in the San Francisco office,' she recalls.Bear's fall 'validated' her hard feelings, leaving no doubt in her mind that quitting was the right move. Ms. Ennor, 45, now works for Channel Checkers, an institutional-research firm in San Francisco. From her home office, she does the same kind of training that she did at Bear.Ms. Ennor planned to cash in her Bear stock to help send her son to college. 'Thank God, he turned out to be a football star,' she says. He will attend St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa, on an athletic scholarship this fall.Her losses were small compared with the millions of dollars that some Bear employees lost. 'But to me, it was a lot,' Ms. Ennor says.She gets together with five former co-workers, talking about their time at Bear over dinner. They recently recalled the memos issued by Alan 'Ace' Greenberg, the firm's former chief executive, exhorting employees to save paper clips.Since quitting Bear, Ms. Ennor has made a point of stocking her desk with plenty of large, multicolored paper clips.Eric OrtizSales managerEric Ortiz still carries pieces of Bear with him everywhere.A sales manager in Dallas for Bear's residential-mortgage operation, Mr. Ortiz grabbed teddy bears stamped with the firm's logo, taking them home to his two children as the company was teetering last March.The stuffed bears, pens, stationery, hats and some old Bear emails are scattered around the house. 'I have things that tell them that I was part of the firm that was part of the credit crisis,' he says. 'We're part of history.'Mr. Ortiz, 35 years old, thought he would stay at Bear for 25 years, but lasted only about two years, until June 2008. He managed 30 loan officers and processing employees, and then J.P. Morgan sold the business to private-equity firm Lone Star Funds. Mr. Ortiz resigned two weeks ago.Last Monday, he started a new job as a sales manager inCitigroup Inc.'s mortgage group in Dallas. 'They hired me to turn things around,' Mr. Ortiz says. One encouraging coincidence:Citigroup shares jumped more than 70% this past week.Mr. Ortiz is thankful that he owned no Bear shares and hasn't had to uproot his family to find work. The past year was bad enough.'I've always thought of myself as a tough person,' he says. 'This year has made me realize how tough.'With Citigroup struggling to overcome five consecutive quarterly losses and the recession, Mr. Ortiz is trying not to overthink his job security. 'I don't think there's anywhere out there that's 100% stable any more,' he says.Stephen ChenSoftware developer, asset-management groupA year ago, Stephen Chen was frantically printing out financial information about Bear to present to potential acquirers. After working until 3 a.m. at the firm's headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, he was back in the office and eating pizza at 6 a.m. when he saw a construction crane topple nearby. 'I couldn't help but notice the parallels,' Mr. Chen says.After leaving Bear, the 26-year-old Mr. Chen and Iris Chau, a friend he met while dragon-boat racing in the New York borough of Queens, launched a charitable group called GreenSoul Shoes. Its goal is to put recycled shoes on the feet of one million poor children world-wide within five years.For now, Mr. Chen and Ms. Chau are running GreenSoul from a free office in the TriBeCa neighborhood of lower Manhattan donated by Sunshine Suites, a real-estate management company. The project is partially funded from their severance packages.While an undergraduate at Brown University, Mr. Chen started a discount-travel service and button-making company. Rekindling those entrepreneurial impulses after two years at Bear has been a gratifying change, he says.Mr. Chen also doesn't miss having to arrive for work at Bear at 7 a.m., a grueling haul from his home in the Flushing section of Queens. His girlfriend at the time, who also worked at Bear, started at 4:30 a.m.After sticking around to help with the transition of Bear into J.P. Morgan, Mr. Chen sent his last work email on Oct. 30. He sent a thank-you note to co-workers, copying in Ms. Chau. She was recently laid off by J.P. Morgan.Kerri KellyAssociate director, private-client servicesWith Bear awash in ominous rumors in the second week of March 2008, Kerri Kelly applied for a job at the Web site of Doctors Without Borders, the international humanitarian group that provides medical care to people suffering from war, famine and other calamities. By the time she was laid off by J.P. Morgan in June, she had been hired. After taking the summer off, Ms. Kelly, 35, started as finance and human-resources coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Tbilisi, Georgia. The position will last for at least one year, and she earns less than 10% of her take-home pay as an associate director in Bear's private-client services division.Doctors Without Borders runs several projects in Georgia, including emergency medical and psychiatric services to people displaced by last year's fighting between ethnic Russians, Georgians and Ossetians. The group also is helping people struggling with tuberculosis.Ms. Kelly, who grew up on New York's Long Island and is a civil engineer by training, is less nostalgic about her seven years at Bear than she is about colleagues and friends at work who were unmoored by the company's implosion.In an email sent from Georgia, she wrote that she thinks often of longtime Bear employees 'who lost their jobs, their stock, their [sense] of who they were for 20 years.'Still, 'we are all very lucky,' Ms. Kelly wrote. 'Five minutes in the pediatric [multidrug-resistant] TB ward will get that point across to anyone.'ROBIN SIDEL / KATE KELLY
One year ago today, Bear Stearns Cos. was on its last legs.Despite surviving the Great Depression, the New York securities firm was collapsing under the mortgage crisis. Worried clients were fleeing, forcing federal officials to throw Bear an extraordinary lifeline that allowed the company to borrow directly from the government.Within two days, Bear had been cornered into selling itself to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. for $2 a share, or about $236 million, barely 7% of its stock-market value at the time. The price was later raised to $10 a share, and the deal wound up costing $1.5 billion.The fall was especially brutal for Bear employees. They owned about a third of the shares, often accumulated during long careers fueled by the company's culture as a scrappy underdog that fought head-to-head against bigger, better-pedigreed firms.Out of the 14,000 employees at Bear, only about 5,000 now have jobs at J.P. Morgan, which also dismissed roughly 2,000 of its own employees as part of the takeover and broader economic downturn.The Bear employees who stuck around are adjusting to life inside a buttoned-down commercial bank. Many who lost their jobs remain unemployed. Others responded to the firm's demise by taking a leap of faith in their professional or personal life. Here are some of their stories, as compiled by Mary Pilon, Kate Kelly and Robin Sidel:Alan Schwartz Chief ExecutiveAfter Bear's demise, Alan Schwartz, the 58-year-old CEO of the firm, went out of his way to keep a low profile. Since telling a Senate committee last April that there was nothing he could have done to save Bear, Mr. Schwartz has refused to comment publicly.He stuck around while the firm was being absorbed by J.P. Morgan, declining a job offer from James Dimon, chairman and CEO of the New York bank, until he could gauge how well the acquired securities firm's employees were being treated by their new bosses.Shortly after Labor Day, Mr. Schwartz went to work for British bank Rothschild Inc., where his friend Christopher Lawrence is vice chairman. The new job lets Mr. Schwartz focus on the impressive Rolodex of clients he built as Bear's top investment banker, including Microsoft Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and Walt Disney Co.Mr. Schwartz, who couldn't be reached for comment, recently became chairman of the Robin Hood Foundation, a New York City charity that fights poverty.Figuring out how to move on has been tough on Samuel Molinaro, Bear's former chief financial officer, according to friends and associates.Mr. Molinaro, 51, wrestled with his future as Bear's operations were folded into J.P. Morgan. During that time, he redirected some of his energy to board memberships at his alma mater, St. Bonaventure University in southwestern New York, and King Low Heywood Thomas School in Stamford, Conn., where his two youngest children are students.In September, Mr. Molinaro took a part-time consulting job at Paulson & Co., a hedge-fund firm that accused Bear in 2007 of trying to manipulate the market for mortgage-backed securities. He helps analyze the financial statements of banks and brokerage firms.'His experience as CFO of Bear is very helpful to us,' says John Paulson, who runs the hedge-fund firm. It reaped $15 billion in 2007 betting against subprime mortgages and added more profits last year.Michael Alix Chief Risk OfficerBloggers weren't kind to Michael Alix when he joined the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as a senior vice president in November. His last job at Bear was chief risk officer, making him a frequent punching bag for the firm's blow-ups.Mr. Alix, 47 years old, had established a strong rapport with Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Fed before he was named Treasury secretary under President Barack Obama. In 2005, Mr. Alix was part of an industry committee convened by Mr. Geithner to develop guidelines for the credit-derivatives market. The volatile business, in which investors load up on protection against the default of a firm's debt, helped seal Bear's fate last March.As part of the New York Fed's bank-supervision division, Mr. Alix has had his hands full dealing with the dominoes sent tumbling since Bear. He is enmeshed in the problems of mammoth insurer American International Group Inc.'s financial-products business. That unit is facing crushing demands for payouts on its sale of credit-default swaps, or protection against declines in various securities.Mr. Alix's colleagues say he often lingers late at work and comes in on weekends. He couldn't be reached for comment.James Cayne ChairmanJames Cayne took the Bear's desperation sale hard. After initially pushing to file for bankruptcy rather than do a deal with J.P. Morgan, Mr. Cayne and his wife, Patricia, sold nearly all their Bear shares. By then, the stake was valued at $61 million, down from about $1 billion.'I personally apologize,' Mr. Cayne said in May at the firm's last shareholder meeting. 'Words can't describe the feelings that I feel.'Since then, Mr. Cayne has rarely been seen or heard from in public. Focusing on one of his first loves, he has been active on the competitive bridge circuit, attending a tournament in Boston late last year and traveling to Australia last month. Mr. Cayne also is spending time in his home on the New Jersey shore. He didn't return calls seeking comment.On Valentine's Day, Mr. Cayne celebrated his 75th birthday.John Paul TraderSix months after his layoff from what was Bear's trading desk in London, John Paul spends mornings clicking at a Bloomberg terminal at home. 'I miss the buzz of the trading floor,' Mr. Paul says.The 12-hour days that piled up during 15 years at Bear haven't landed him a new job since J.P. Morgan cut him loose in September. So many of his fellow traders at Bear are jobless that they meet regularly for coffee. The 36-year-old Mr. Paul talks to former colleagues every day, usually after getting up early and checking on the financial markets.Still being unemployed gives him more time at the gym and with his six-year-old son. 'It's nice to pick your kid up from school,' Mr. Paul says.To mark the first anniversary of Bear's government-engineered sale to J.P. Morgan, Mr. Paul plans to gather with former co-workers at Bar One in Canary Wharf, the section of London where the firm's European headquarters was located.Before Bear collapsed, the bar was a popular after-hours watering hole for traders and other employees. He expects more than 100 people to show up. Many of them are looking for work.'The whole thing has made me very philosophical about the industry as a whole,' he says.Andreas DirnaglAnalystShortly after Bear's sale was announced, J.P. Morgan analyst Andreas Dirnagl had an awkward encounter at the top of a hotel escalator with his counterpart in Bear's research department. The two health-care analysts knew there wouldn't be room for both of them.'We quickly figured out that neither of us knew anything,' says Mr. Dirnagl, 41, who had been at J.P. Morgan for four years.At first, Mr. Dirnagl was confident he could win a battle for the lone analyst job. But weeks passed with no news. While attending a conference in Frankfurt, his cellphone rang with a call from the boss. 'We're going in another direction with our coverage,' Mr. Dirnagl was told.Translation: A lower-paid associate was taking over his research coverage. Mr. Dirnagl left J.P. Morgan in May.A few weeks into unemployment, Mr. Dirnagl rejected feelers from Stephens Inc., which had just lost a health-care analyst to another securities firm. He wanted to take the summer off.The Little Rock, Ark., company wouldn't take no for an answer. After reluctantly agreeing to a meeting, he signed a contract that allowed him to start once summer was over. Mr. Dirnagl visited relatives in Germany, climbed Machu Picchu in Peru and spent Wednesday afternoons at the movies.Given all the job cuts on Wall Street in the past year, 'thank goodness' Stephens was aggressive, he says. His downsized Bear rival, Jason Gurda, now works as an analyst at Leerink Swann LLC, a research firm specializing in the health-care industry.Maureen EnnorHedge-fund trainer, global clearing deskMaureen Ennor left Bear's hedge-fund desk in San Francisco in 2004. But she still had about $45,000 in company stock last March. 'I still have such animosity,' she says. 'We all sacrificed so much for Bear.'A single mother of two children, Ms. Ennor left for work at 4 a.m. During her four years at the firm, she never made more than $100,000 a year or got a bonus, she says. Other Bear employees told her they 'wouldn't take $1 million to work in the San Francisco office,' she recalls.Bear's fall 'validated' her hard feelings, leaving no doubt in her mind that quitting was the right move. Ms. Ennor, 45, now works for Channel Checkers, an institutional-research firm in San Francisco. From her home office, she does the same kind of training that she did at Bear.Ms. Ennor planned to cash in her Bear stock to help send her son to college. 'Thank God, he turned out to be a football star,' she says. He will attend St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa, on an athletic scholarship this fall.Her losses were small compared with the millions of dollars that some Bear employees lost. 'But to me, it was a lot,' Ms. Ennor says.She gets together with five former co-workers, talking about their time at Bear over dinner. They recently recalled the memos issued by Alan 'Ace' Greenberg, the firm's former chief executive, exhorting employees to save paper clips.Since quitting Bear, Ms. Ennor has made a point of stocking her desk with plenty of large, multicolored paper clips.Eric OrtizSales managerEric Ortiz still carries pieces of Bear with him everywhere.A sales manager in Dallas for Bear's residential-mortgage operation, Mr. Ortiz grabbed teddy bears stamped with the firm's logo, taking them home to his two children as the company was teetering last March.The stuffed bears, pens, stationery, hats and some old Bear emails are scattered around the house. 'I have things that tell them that I was part of the firm that was part of the credit crisis,' he says. 'We're part of history.'Mr. Ortiz, 35 years old, thought he would stay at Bear for 25 years, but lasted only about two years, until June 2008. He managed 30 loan officers and processing employees, and then J.P. Morgan sold the business to private-equity firm Lone Star Funds. Mr. Ortiz resigned two weeks ago.Last Monday, he started a new job as a sales manager inCitigroup Inc.'s mortgage group in Dallas. 'They hired me to turn things around,' Mr. Ortiz says. One encouraging coincidence:Citigroup shares jumped more than 70% this past week.Mr. Ortiz is thankful that he owned no Bear shares and hasn't had to uproot his family to find work. The past year was bad enough.'I've always thought of myself as a tough person,' he says. 'This year has made me realize how tough.'With Citigroup struggling to overcome five consecutive quarterly losses and the recession, Mr. Ortiz is trying not to overthink his job security. 'I don't think there's anywhere out there that's 100% stable any more,' he says.Stephen ChenSoftware developer, asset-management groupA year ago, Stephen Chen was frantically printing out financial information about Bear to present to potential acquirers. After working until 3 a.m. at the firm's headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, he was back in the office and eating pizza at 6 a.m. when he saw a construction crane topple nearby. 'I couldn't help but notice the parallels,' Mr. Chen says.After leaving Bear, the 26-year-old Mr. Chen and Iris Chau, a friend he met while dragon-boat racing in the New York borough of Queens, launched a charitable group called GreenSoul Shoes. Its goal is to put recycled shoes on the feet of one million poor children world-wide within five years.For now, Mr. Chen and Ms. Chau are running GreenSoul from a free office in the TriBeCa neighborhood of lower Manhattan donated by Sunshine Suites, a real-estate management company. The project is partially funded from their severance packages.While an undergraduate at Brown University, Mr. Chen started a discount-travel service and button-making company. Rekindling those entrepreneurial impulses after two years at Bear has been a gratifying change, he says.Mr. Chen also doesn't miss having to arrive for work at Bear at 7 a.m., a grueling haul from his home in the Flushing section of Queens. His girlfriend at the time, who also worked at Bear, started at 4:30 a.m.After sticking around to help with the transition of Bear into J.P. Morgan, Mr. Chen sent his last work email on Oct. 30. He sent a thank-you note to co-workers, copying in Ms. Chau. She was recently laid off by J.P. Morgan.Kerri KellyAssociate director, private-client servicesWith Bear awash in ominous rumors in the second week of March 2008, Kerri Kelly applied for a job at the Web site of Doctors Without Borders, the international humanitarian group that provides medical care to people suffering from war, famine and other calamities. By the time she was laid off by J.P. Morgan in June, she had been hired. After taking the summer off, Ms. Kelly, 35, started as finance and human-resources coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Tbilisi, Georgia. The position will last for at least one year, and she earns less than 10% of her take-home pay as an associate director in Bear's private-client services division.Doctors Without Borders runs several projects in Georgia, including emergency medical and psychiatric services to people displaced by last year's fighting between ethnic Russians, Georgians and Ossetians. The group also is helping people struggling with tuberculosis.Ms. Kelly, who grew up on New York's Long Island and is a civil engineer by training, is less nostalgic about her seven years at Bear than she is about colleagues and friends at work who were unmoored by the company's implosion.In an email sent from Georgia, she wrote that she thinks often of longtime Bear employees 'who lost their jobs, their stock, their [sense] of who they were for 20 years.'Still, 'we are all very lucky,' Ms. Kelly wrote. 'Five minutes in the pediatric [multidrug-resistant] TB ward will get that point across to anyone.'ROBIN SIDEL / KATE KELLY