Yesterday New York Times reporter Patrick McGeehan revealed that at ciritical moments during Bear Stearns hedge fund crisis last month, Bear Stearns chief executive Jimmy Cayne again and again hit the links.
On June 14, the day when Bear Stearns reported a 10 percent drop in its operating earnings for the second quarter, Mr. Cayne played a round and shot a 96, his scores on the online database, GHIN.com, indicate. The next day, a Friday, he played again.
On Thursday, June 21, as several big banks pressured Bear Stearns to increase the collateral on loans they had made to its sinking fund, Mr. Cayne was back on the course. That day, he shot a 98.
The next day, in the biggest rescue of a hedge fund in almost a decade, Bear Stearns pledged to put up $3.2 billion to bail out its fund. (It later said that $1.6 billion would suffice.) Then the remarkably consistent Mr. Cayne played golf, shooting a 97.
The letter to clients sent out by Bear Stearns:
online.wsj.com |
