Bear Stearns’s Chairman Cayne Unloads Firm’s Stock After JPMorgan Acquisition Offer

(NewsVisual, powered by IntellectSpace) -- In the quickly evolving drama of near corporate bankruptcy and personal anguish occasioned by The Bear Stearns Companies Inc (NYSE:BSC) saga, the latest episode focuses on Chairman James E Cayne and his sell-off of a large numbers of the firm’s shares that he personally held as part of his compensation package.

"Together with his wife, Patricia Cayne, Mr. Cayne sold 5.7 million Bear Stearns shares at a price of $10.84 apiece, according to regulatory filings -- creating just $61.3 million in paper profit," according to an online article on Thursday by The Wall Street Journal.

This is not the first time, however, that a Bear Stearns top-level official sold off large numbers of shares in order to attenuate personal financial losses as the firm’s potential collapse into bankruptcy became more widely known.

Citing an article by MarketWatch which broke the first sell-off story, NewsVisual reported on March 21 that Bear's leadership team sold off large amounts of their shares to the tune of more than $20 million in December.  The team included Chairman Cayne, CEO/President/Director Alan D Schwartz, CFO Samuel L Molinaro, and Executive Committee Chairman/Director Alan C Greenberg.

This first sell-off occurred several months before the JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM) buyout of Bear Stearns.

NewsVisual decided to create an IntellectSpace Knowledge Map of Bear Stearns Board of Directors in order to illustrate its members’ past and current connections to other corporate entities.

The question of whether their service on other boards will come in for more scrutiny remains a question to be answered in the coming days.

To see the details of these Directors other board-room connections, click here for an interactive and fuller version of this IntellectSpace Knowledge Map.

(Note: the information contained and presented in Knowledge Maps is public information from the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States of America).