Jamie Dimon: Better Lucky Than Good?

While it remains to be seen if Jamie Dimon pulled off a sweetheart of a deal with Bear Stearns, it appears he gets lucky from time to time:

The pressure on WaMu to shore up its balance sheet kept mounting. In March, JPMorgan Chase saw an opportunity and urged WaMu in a letter to consider a quick deal. On the same weekend that JPMorgan’s chief executive, James Dimon, negotiated his daring takeover of Bear Stearns, he secretly dispatched members of his team to Seattle to meet with WaMu executives. When JPMorgan Chase offered WaMu $8 a share, largely in stock. But Mr. Killinger balked at the price — as well as the fact that he would lose his job.

Dimon gets the parts of Washington Mutual (WM-NYSE) that he wanted, and saves roughly $12 billion. Nice. Too bad Kerry did not sign off.



But the hits just keep on coming.


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WaMu Is Seized, Sold Off to J.P. Morgan, In Largest Failure in U.S. Banking History
WSJ

Goldman’s Goldman Deal Catapaults Goldman Over Goldman’s Closest Rival

Just another reason to hate the SOB’s-now they are doing deals just to win bragging rights:

A last-minute increase in the size of Goldman Sachs’ secondary offering yesterday propelled the US bank to the top of Thomson Reuters’ equity capital market rankings for the third quarter, pushing rival JP Morgan, which had led the field until last night, into second place.

Brace yourself. Given the state of the competition, Goldman is likely to stay atop the league tables until hell freezes over..

Fundraising hike prompts last-minute change in league tables
Financial News

Foul Smells Wafting Around 85 Broad

Last week Goldman Sachs nearly got the knockout blow that many of their rivals have longed for. Were they nearly done in by the credit default swaps they so loved to trade? That is debatable, but it would seem the human piranhas who smelled blood in the water nearly finished off the mighty firm. However, it was a disaster averted, thanks in part to Hank Paulson and his merry men in Washington.

Tthe ramp in their stock in the closing minutes of trading yesterday might have told you something was up at 85 Broad, in the latest brow raiser:

An unusual surge in Goldman Sachs' share price in the last 10 minutes of trading on Tuesday raised eyebrows on Wall Street, as it came two hours before news of Warren Buffett's big investment in the bank.

Goldman Sachs shares rose more than $5 heading into the close of trading even as the rest of the market tumbled, leaving traders suspicious that inside information was used to make a profit Reuters

Goldman is moving quickly to bolser its capital adequacy, just days after denying, Erin Callan-style, that they would need to raise any capital. The regulators were no doubt pushing them to do a deal, and they were even able to get their stock up today in the wake of a dilutive transaction.

CEO Lloyd Blankfein has to be laughing, pretty much at everyone's expense, today.

Is the Lehman/Barclays Deal in Jeopardy?

A quiet weekend for ex-Lehman-ites might not be in the cards...the FT is reporting the deal might have hit a snag.

Don't hyperventilate if this effects you; the media has done a great job this week but many inaccuracies have been published, quite understandable given the shelf life of news recently:

.....it emerged on Friday that the value of securities held by investment bank Lehman Brothers, which filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, had fallen to $47.4bn from $72bn – revealed in bankruptcy court proceedings.

That could prompt Barclays to revise the terms of its $1.75bn acquisition of Lehman’s brokerage business or even scrap the deal, according to people familiar with the situation. Barclays and Lehman declined to comment. FT

Barclays has agreed to pay all of the accrued bonuses to Lehman employees providing less than 10% of the transferred employees leave the combined firm, just the sort of wrinkle that will force the troops to herd together. They might talk a good game, but the options for employment are dim, given the state of the Street. Peer pressure is no doubt intense, and if teams get competing offers to leave en masse this could get interesting, something recent buyers of Barclays (BCS-NYSE) stock might want to take into consideration when the market re-opens London Monday morning.

Rescue plan slows Morgan-Wachovia talks
FT

Man in the News: Bob Diamond
FT
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