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2008-09-26 Home Front Economy

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Posted by Steve White 2008-09-26 00:00|| || Front Page|| [10325 views ] Top

#1 New York-based JPMorgan won't acquire liabilities of the lender, including claims by shareholders and subordinated and senior debt holders, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said. JPMorgan said it is adding branches in California, Washington and Florida and will have 5,400 offices with about $900 billion in deposits, the most of any U.S. bank. The branches will carry the Chase brand and will be integrated by 2010, JPMorgan said. They will be open for business tomorrow as usual, the OTS said in its statement.

Business as ususal for everyone but stockholders.

Posted by anymouse">anymouse 2008-09-26 01:32|| 2008-09-26 01:32|| Front Page Top

#2 the debtholders, too, anymouse.

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-09-26 04:43|| 2008-09-26 04:43|| Front Page Top

#3 Damn, I wish I had bought some WAMU stock last week.

Posted by Cyber Sarge 2008-09-26 06:01|| 2008-09-26 06:01|| Front Page Top

#4 Last time I watched Jim Cramer he was telling people to buy BIG BANKS. That was his advice to almost everyone that called in. Tasty pick, huh?

Posted by bigjim-ky 2008-09-26 07:22|| 2008-09-26 07:22|| Front Page Top

#5 Badanov posted a similar story about the same time as I did,

As long as something gets posted about it.

Posted by badanov 2008-09-26 07:29|| http://www.freefirezone.org]">[http://www.freefirezone.org] 2008-09-26 07:29|| Front Page Top

#6 I posted this after JPMC acquired Bear Sterns and it is appropo again -

Jamie Dimon has said in almost every public talk he has given in the past two years "There is a difference between buying a house and buying a house on fire."

Not all shareholders are getting screwed - JPMC shareholders look favorably on paying $1.9B for $310B of assets. WaMu common stock shareholders are now much better off than they were yesterday.

The WAMU shareholders and the Board let senior management run this company into the ground. It is a shame but. . .

Posted by GORT 2008-09-26 08:27|| 2008-09-26 08:27|| Front Page Top

#7 So, does that mean I don't get free checks for life any more? ;)

Posted by Cornsilk Blondie 2008-09-26 08:38|| 2008-09-26 08:38|| Front Page Top

#8 Should have kept it. Use the existing institutional structure, after firing the higher ups, to create the Bank of the United States to front for the Fed's distribution other banks while taking the lead the as the Bank of First Credit[c] directly in the commercial market. Credit crunch solved without the middlemen.

Posted by Procopius2k 2008-09-26 08:45|| 2008-09-26 08:45|| Front Page Top

#9 What a deal for JPM! What a steal. Got the assets for relatively nothing but not the liabilities and debt.

Posted by JohnQC 2008-09-26 14:39|| 2008-09-26 14:39|| Front Page Top

#10 Okay, folks. Try not let this ruin your faith in the Captains of Finance...

Alan Fishman was the new chief executive officer for Washingon Mutual WaMu the nation's largest savings and loan, which was taken over Thursday night by federal bank regulators and quickly dumped in a fire sale to JPMorgan Chase for the Wal-Mart-like price of $1.9 billion.

But don't cry for Fishman, who reportedly was sky-high literally last night, on a flight from New York to Seattle, when WaMu collapsed. Even though he's only been on the job for less than three weeks, he's bailing out with parachute worth close to $20 million, according to an executive compensation analysis conducted for the New York Times by James F. Reda Associates. That's right, $20 million for 17 days on the job ... and his company failed.

Fishman, who formerly was chairman of Meridian Capital Group, apparently was much coveted by WaMu, which was counting on him to lead the failing thrift out of mortgage troubles that pushed the bank to a $3.3 billion second-quarter loss.

According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, WaMu threw a $7.5 million bonus at Fishman when it hired him on Sept. 8, and guaranteed him an immediate cash severence of $11.6 million both of which he gets to keep.

He also was eligible for annual bonuses of up to 365 percent of his annual base pay set at $1 million to go with millions of shares of company stock.

Fishman does lose out on a big bonus that would have kicked in had he remained on the job through 2009. Documents show WaMu was going to pay their new boss $8 million to simply not screw up and get fired all negotiated as the Seattle-based banking giant's loses climbed to an estimated $20 billion.

Maybe we should start shooting some of these bastards?

Posted by tu3031 2008-09-26 15:05|| 2008-09-26 15:05|| Front Page Top

#11 Maybe we should start shooting some of these bastards?

Certainly. But target identification is always important. Don't be pissed at Fishman. Who wouldn't take that deal if they could get it?

But the Compensation Committee and the Board. . . .

Fire at will!

Posted by GORT 2008-09-26 15:23|| 2008-09-26 15:23|| Front Page Top

#12 I have to confess to a certain sense of satisfaction. About 5 years ago I got really annoyed with WaMu which had been a customer-friendly organization up to that point. They started treating their depositors as prey rather than customers. Apparently they were changing their focus from small depositors to big-time mortgage business. So I closed my accounts and wrote them a letter saying they'd end up going down the tubes unless they cleaned up their act.

I'm not one to say "I told you so", so I'll just say "NYAH, NYAH, you steatopygians"!

Posted by Mercutio 2008-09-26 15:36|| 2008-09-26 15:36|| Front Page Top

#13 so... who is next?

Posted by Abu do you love 2008-09-26 15:49|| 2008-09-26 15:49|| Front Page Top

#14 Do a Google News search on "Wachovia".

Posted by Darrell 2008-09-26 16:14|| 2008-09-26 16:14|| Front Page Top

#15 RE: #3 -- There was a brief window where you could have bought shares at $2.01 last week and sold them for a 50% profit, but if you had those shares now you're pretty much SOL.

Posted by Dar">Dar 2008-09-26 17:05|| 2008-09-26 17:05|| Front Page Top

#16 The market place rewards the bad management of companies by them going out of business or someone else taking them over. The DJIA did not show the dire consequences today that the pundits predicted. The market place is correcting some of the bad things brought on by government boondoggles such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the subprime debacle.

What happens if the bailout gets torpedoed?

Posted by JohnQC 2008-09-26 17:23|| 2008-09-26 17:23|| Front Page Top

#17 What happens if the bailout gets torpedoed?

VERY ROUGH ROAD AHEAD.

What happens if the bailout is approved?

VERY ROUGH ROAD AHEAD (Less 700B USD).

Posted by Besoeker 2008-09-26 17:31|| 2008-09-26 17:31|| Front Page Top

#18 lol, amen.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-09-26 17:39|| 2008-09-26 17:39|| Front Page Top

#19 You know, I wonder if there weren't some clues a couple of weeks ago. WAMU moved a lot of business into San Antonio, earlier this year - and coindidentally my dearly beloved daughter, the former Cpl/Sgt Blondie who got into a job as office drone and occassional sales-person for a small firm which sold permanent shade structures, scored a small sales coup when she 'sold' a shade structure for a small WAMU outlet(under construction) very close to where we live, earlier this summer. About a week weeks ago, the local office of WAMU that she had been working with, suddenly cancelled the purchase order for the shade structure. No shade structure, no payment - she will have to return/pay back the commission that she got for the sale.
We're really interested now in what they will do with the building on the corner which was supposed to be a WAMU account...

Posted by Sgt. Mom">Sgt. Mom 2008-09-26 20:02|| http://www.celiahayes.com]">[http://www.celiahayes.com] 2008-09-26 20:02|| Front Page Top

#20 Sgt. Mom - according to the analyst call last night with the big JPMC dogs - all overlapping bank branches (JPMC and MaMu) will be evaluated to see which one stays open and assumes the local market. It will depend on location (primarily) and age and condition of the structure.

Posted by BankDude 2008-09-26 20:53|| 2008-09-26 20:53|| Front Page Top

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