At Bear Stearns Midtown offices yesterday shirts, hats and umbrellas carrying the firm’s Bear logo moved like hotcakes as the 85-year-old investment bank inches closer to being gobbled up by Jamie Dimon’s JPMorgan Chase.
It was a fire sale of a different sort with staffers lining up on Bear’s second-floor cafeteria to grab a piece of a legacy that will be all-but-snuffed out after June 1, when JPMorgan is expected to wrap the buyout.
An internal Bear memo distributed on Monday to Manhattan employees letting staffers know that today would be the last chance to grab Bear memorabilia including, golf shirts, golf bags, fleeces and other knickknacks, served as a grim reminder that the end of an era was near.
A Bear spokeswoman confirmed the contents of the memo but declined to comment further.
Bear suffered an unprecedented run on the bank in mid March, compelling Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to step in to help stave off what might have been a widespread collapse.
Meanwhile, Bear Stearns’ baseball caps were being sold for $8.60, golf shirts ranged from $15 to $25 and umbrellas fetched $7.
Another batch of merchandise will be sold today.
At JPMorgan’s annual shareholder meeting yesterday here, Dimon reiterated that JPMorgan would be retaining 45 percent of the Bear Stearns staff.
He also said that while the Bear purchase “is a very risky and tough proposition,” it could add about $1 billion to JPMorgan’s earnings next year.