JPMorgan given approval to buy out Bear Stearns

Shareholders remain distressed over the loss of their stock value.

NEW YORK (AP) — Bear Stearns shareholders have approved JPMorgan Chase’s buyout, ending the saga of the 85-year-old pillar of Wall Street that crumbled under the weight of its own wagers on high-risk mortgages.

The tumult is far from over, however, for JPMorgan Chase Co. — which now must mesh Bear Stearns’ maverick culture with its own — and the thousands of workers affected by the takeover.

Bear Stearns officially becomes part of JPMorgan Chase today, after a widely anticipated “yes” vote that won with 84 percent of the vote Thursday morning at Bear Stearns’ midtown Manhattan headquarters.

All told, the deal was worth about $2.3 billion. JPMorgan is spending $1.4 billion for the firm itself, and spent an additional $900 million over the past month-and-a-half buying up Bear Stearns stock to guarantee the deal would go through.

Thursday’s meeting, led by Bear Stearns’ chairman James Cayne and CEO Alan Schwartz, lasted less than 10 minutes, leaving some Bear Stearns shareholders angered by the speed at which the deal closed.

“They were up there drinking coffee paid with my money ... and we lost our money overnight,” said Hannah Horgan, a Bear Stearns shareholder. “I have nothing left, and they were so calm.”

Back in January 2007, before mortgage defaults began clobbering banks and draining demand from the debt markets, Bear Stearns had traded at $171 a share. Now, JPMorgan is buying the firm for about $10 a share. The acquisition is resulting in thousands of layoffs at both Bear Stearns and JPMorgan.

“I think it’s a shame,” said Davis Edwards, who was loading the contents of his office into an SUV parked outside Bear Stearns Thursday. Edwards worked as a mathematician for Bear Stearns for 11 years.

“This was a very prolific and lucrative firm,” Edwards said. “There’s a lot of good people in there.”