Somebody Has A Good Attorney!
I cannot profess to understand anything but the smallest, tiniest morsel of what has been happening in the Bear Stearns deal but this certainly piqued my interest because of the dollars involved…
Working for the Weekend: The Lawyers on the Bear/J.P. Morgan Deal
“For those LB readers whose eyes tend to move swiftly past all M&A-related headlines, here’s some background info on, and a summary of, today’s jaw-dropping news on Wall Street. In January, Bear was worth about $20 billion. On Friday — yes, the Friday that was three days ago — Bear had a stock-market value of about $3.5 billion. Last night, it sold for $236 million — a price that, its advisors apparently thought, was preferable to bankruptcy. The Law Blog will be interested to see whether shareholders agree. (Here are stories from the WSJ, the NYT, and the FT.)
If Bear does face shareholder suits, at least it can say it didn’t scrimp on lawyers. Representing Bear was S&C’s Rodgin Cohen, the lawyer who stood at the center of January’s slew of sovereign wealth fund deals; Cadwalader’s Dennis Block, the only lawyer we know who gets to the office as early as the Law Blog; and Skadden’s Peter Atkins.
J.P. Morgan was counseled by Wachtell Lipton’s Ed Herlihy and Nick Demmo.”
Putting it in a different perspective, this is one helluva loss in value considering that only a year ago Bear’s shares sold for $170. and now they’ve been sold for $2.00. That’ll leave a mark…
