Maybe a sign of it bottoming out sooner rather than later. Bear Stearns bites the dust.
Quote:
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Bear Stearns, facing collapse because of the mortgage crisis, agreed Sunday evening to be bought by JPMorgan Chase for a bargain-basement price of less than $250 million, the two companies announced.
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Quote:
Bear Stearns’s stock price of $30 on Friday represented a yawning 62 percent discount to the $80 book value that the firm has reported, reflecting the broad view among investors that the fallout from the credit crunch has permanently devastated Bear’s core mortgage operations. JPMorgan’s bid of $2 a share, however, represents a 97.5 percent discount.
JPMorgan appears to have concluded that the business of one of Wall Street’s oldest investment banks is worth far less than the value of the firm’s Midtown Manhattan skyscraper, which is probably worth at least $1 billion.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/bu...l?ref=business
Not sure I understand how this can go through at such a steep discount. Reminds of of post USSR when the robber barons got some Soviet assets at a steal.