Ex-Bear Stearns CEO Alan Schwartz has landed at European investment bank Rothschild – only, the move doesn’t appear to be permanent.
Sources tell The Post that Schwartz has set up temporary shop at Rothschild’s offices in New York after deciding not to take a role at JPMorgan Chase, which gobbled up Bear Stearns this summer in a stunning Federal Reserve-led buyout.
The former Bear chief, who is regarded as a heavyweight rainmaker and whose clients have included Disney and Cablevision, is still trying to sort out a number of job tracks available to him, including working at another investment bank or private-equity shop.
Schwartz’s longtime associate and right-hand man, Richard Metrick, who formerly was a Bear senior managing director, also has taken an office at Rothschild.
As The Post reported earlier, Schwartz is mulling joining a firm such as Warburg Pincus or Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. There are also reports that Schwartz is considering launching a mergers and acquisition advisory team at KKR.
For now, sources said that Schwartz and Metrick appear content with patiently sorting out their next move, and they add that Schwartz has not offered up a timetable or given any indication of which way he’s leaning, sources say.
A call to the bankers at Rothschild’s offices was not returned.
Schwartz took over Bear from Jimmy Cayne last year, and had been on the job a mere three months before his company, facing bankruptcy, was taken over by JPMorgan.