Submitted by: Submitted by macy711
Views: 374
Words: 4282
Pages: 18
Category: Business and Industry
Date Submitted: 10/07/2012 10:30 PM
Bear Stearns was founded as an equity trading house on May Day 1923 by Joseph Bear, Robert Stearns and Harold Mayer with $500,000 in capital. The firm survived the Wall Street Crash of 1929 without laying off any employees and by 1933 opened its first branch office in Chicago.
In 1985, Bear Stearns became a publicly traded company. It served corporations, institutions, governments and individuals. The company's business included corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, institutional equities, fixed income sales & risk management, trading and research, private client services, derivatives, foreign exchange and futures sales and trading, asset management and custody services. Through Bear Stearns Securities Corp., it offered global clearing services to broker dealers, prime broker clients and other professional traders, including securities lending. Bear Stearns was also known for one of the most widely read market intelligence pieces on the street, known as the "Early Look at the Market - Bear Stearns Morning View."
In 2005-2007, Bear Stearns was recognized as the "Most Admired" securities firm in Fortune's "America's Most Admired Companies" survey, and second overall in the security firm section. This was the second time in three years that Bear Stearns had achieved this "top" distinction. As of November 30, 2006, the company had total capital of approximately $66.7 billion and total assets of $350.4 billion. According to the April 2005 issue of Institutional Investor magazine, Bear Stearns was the seventh-largest securities firm in terms of total capital.
As of November 30, 2007, Bear Stearns had notional contract amounts of approximately $13.40 trillion in derivative financial instruments, of which $1.85 trillion were listed futures and option contracts. In addition, Bear Stearns was carrying more than $28 billion in 'level 3' assets on its books at the end of fiscal 2007 versus a net equity position of only $11.1 billion. This $11.1 billion supported $395...