Fight! Bear Stearn's Elder Statesmen In FingerPointing Feud
After 59 years, Alan C. Greenberg is still trading away at Bear Stearns, the troubled Wall Street bank that is about to disappear. Ask about his retirement plans, and he lets out a belly-jiggling laugh.
"I'm in the noon of my career!" Mr. Greenberg, who at 80 is almost as old as Bear, said during a recent interview in his spacious office near the trading floor.
Unlucky colleagues lost jobs and fortunes when the investment bank collapsed into the arms of JPMorgan Chase this year, and Mr. Greenberg, Bear's former chairman, said he felt terrible about it.
But his sympathy has its limit when it comes to James E. Cayne, the man who wrested Bear from him and presided over its dying days. Told that Mr. Cayne, with whom he worked for four decades, had lost much of his net worth and was suffering personally, Mr. Greenberg's eyes turned cold. "Oh, really. Goodness, that's a shame," he deadpanned.
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New York Times | Landon Thomas, Jr | May 7, 2008 08:25 AM