Blogs and Stories
Fallen Wall Street Titan Speaks
Chester Higgins Jr., The New York Times / Redux
A year after the death of Bear Stearns, former CEO Jimmy Cayne—still playing bridge!—talks to Charlie Gasparino about why he went down with his ship, where to invest now (gold?), and why other CEOs did a worse job.
It’s hard to believe that a year ago this week, one of the largest investment banks in the world, Bear Stearns, imploded. Its finances were so stretched by investments in soured real estate that the federal government arranged an emergency loan to prop up the company before it forced Bear’s shotgun sale to megabank JP Morgan a couple of days later. The move to “save” Bear Stearns by forcing its management to first accept a paltry $2 a share offer (later raised to $10) was considered at the time the mother-of-all stories during the financial crisis.
As someone who lost close to $1 billion, Cayne, like so many others, went from being among the richest people in the world to just ordinarily rich (friends say he still has between $50 million and $100 million).
As we know today, Bear’s implosion was merely a blip on the radar screen, a prelude to a much larger, much scarier story that is still unfolding, and may take years to fully comprehend. And yet, Bear, and its top executives, like former CEO Jimmy Cayne, still provide a bit of comic relief when they take their breaks from spending time at the country club—or in Cayne’s case, between hands of his favorite obsession, playing bridge—to speak their minds.
Last week, I got a taste of what Cayne was thinking. He referred to me as a “snake” in a new book about the fall of Bear, and called one of my former colleagues at the Wall Street Journal something that rhymes with “runt,” based on our coverage of the firm during its final, tumultuous months.
As someone who has known Cayne well for more than a decade, it was vintage Jimmy Cayne. While he was CEO at Bear, Cayne barely had a nice thing to say about anyone—including many of his own co-workers, like Bear President Warren Spector.
But Cayne could be particularly cruel when it came to his peers on Wall Street— everyone from former NYSE chairman Richard Grasso (“pigs always lose,” he once said of Grasso and his attempt to collect on a $140 million pay package, which he eventually held on to—oddly enough thanks to Cayne, who approved the package when he was an NYSE board member) to financier Ken Langone (whom he often referred to as a loudmouth) to former Goldman Sachs CEO and then-treasury secretary Hank Paulson, (in Cayne’s mind one of the most untrusting men on the planet) to one of the real gentlemen of Wall Street, Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack (who was simply “full of shit,” according to Jimmy).
So I reached out to Cayne again this week to hear from him personally if he actually made those remarks about me, because it certainly didn’t sound like the man I received an impromptu phone call from a few weeks earlier. Whether his call was early damage control—because he knew the book was coming out—or simply a chance to do what he liked to do when he was one of the most powerful men on Wall Street, I couldn’t say. Even more than managing Bear, understanding its trading positions and businesses, Cayne loved to schmooze. It should be noted that Cayne stopped talking to me in December 2007, when I broke a story that the board of Bear was beginning to look to have him replaced, signaling that the man who once controlled the firm with an iron fist was losing this control.
For Cayne it was the final straw. I had been hounding him for months—though I refused to report a Wall Street Journal story that he smoked pot (I never saw him high at work so it didn’t matter to me)—and I covered just about every problem the firm and Cayne was facing, from writedowns of losses and the federal inquiry into its imploded hedge funds to an “investigation” conducted by his country club into whether Cayne cheated on his golf scores. And while Cayne certainly complained to me over the years, he never cut me off, until then.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Charles Gasparino is CNBC's On-Air Editor and appears as a daily member of CNBC's ensemble. He is a columnist for the Daily Beast and a frequent contributor to the New York Post, Forbes, and other publications. His forthcoming book about the financial crisis, The Sellout, is scheduled to be published later in 2009.
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Charles Gasparino is CNBC's On-Air Editor and appears as a daily member of CNBC's ensemble. He is a columnist for the Daily Beast and a frequent contributor to the New York Post, Forbes, and other publications. His forthcoming book about the financial crisis, The Sellout, is scheduled to be published later in 2009.
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Charles Gasparino is CNBC's On-Air Editor and appears as a daily member of CNBC's ensemble. He is a columnist for the Daily Beast and a frequent contributor to the New York Post, Forbes, and other publications. His forthcoming book about the financial crisis, The Sellout, is scheduled to be published later in 2009.
For an article titled: "Fallen Wall Street Titan Speaks", you sure do talk about yourself a lot. And by the way, they all took "white-collar criminality to a whole new level". It may not be against the law? It sure was gambling and reckless and there should be a new category of criminal created for them.Ya, it's not soooo bad gambling with other people's money when you have the American taxpayer to cover your losses. Boo hoo hoo...what does one do with his ill gotten gains?
This is why CNBC is hated. An article that is nothing being pushed as "Fallen Wall Street Titan Speaks". This is nothing but an article about how popular Mr. Gasparino is and is that really important? Who cares if a newscaster is liked or not liked. Just imagine if CNBC had asked its reports to report real news rather than worring about if they were popular or not.
If I looked like that I would smoke weed hourly.
Charlie; I really tried to take this seriously, but boy, what a load of claptrap. The tradition of CNBC continues.
Have to agree with the previous comments: Lots of B.S., very little substance. Do you get paid by the word? If not, you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by just writing "Jimmy Cayne doesn't think he's such a bad guy--at least in comparison to Bernie Madoff. I spoke to him for around five minutes and am writing this puff piece in the hope that he'll take some time out from playing bridge to give me a real interview soon."
BTW...when did not being as bad as Bernie Madoff become any kind of reason to give someone a break? That's like finding a murderer and saying "well, he ain't no Charlie Manson, so I guess he's OK."
Agree with previous posters. This was an annoying non-story. 2 pages of 3 before you really get to an "interview" then absolutely, positively no actual information in the "interview." Charlie's reporting seems all over the board. He goes from one extreme to another from post to post and now this fluff peice...
Sorry Charlie, this piece is a time waster.
Who in their right mind would take investment advice from Jimmy Cayne?
Charlie Gasparino is an excellent reporter if your idea of excellence in journalism includes taking a single quote/rumor/shred of an idea and turning it into an overblown self-promotional piece that lacks any real value to understand an event. At least you don't have to hear or see him when you read this...
As we say in the trade, not even a thumbsucker. Jimmy Cayne calls reporter for 2 minutes and reporter turns this into a story. You've been had, Tina!
Sorry, Coyne. I don't care if you went from being a billionaire to homeless. It's hard to invoke sympathy or empathy for an unrepentent blowhard like you. That you went down with the ship should make me admire you? Not happenin'.
EVERY CEO of EVERY firm on Wall Street should at a minimum be embarassed and (for some) at the maximum be prosecuted. ALL of the CEOs understood what they were doing internally -- gambling with shareholders' money. They weren't put on the job to do that. Let them refute that by showing where in their job descriptions it says that they could gamble and act omnipotently above the law.
Ha! A crook interviewing a crook. Loved how Jon Stewart took Gasparino and his cronies at CNBC apart on the Daily Show the other night. Made all of you look like the fools that you are. Not a word coming out of your mouth now, including your insipid criticisms of Obama, have any credibility.
And Jimmy Cayne, so lamely in the shadow of the great Ace Greenberg. Never to achieve the same level of greatness, instead going down in infamy as swinging the golf club and smoking a doobie while Rome burned. Be grateful you're not indicted, Jimmy, and keep spending your unearned blood money. Your reputation you can't get back at any price.
omg r u srs?
did u work 4 the Wall Street Journal?
omg so je4lous!
Seriously man, could you take some initiative and wrtie some real investigative journalism instead of this fluff?
The fact that Cayne is the least crooked of the crooks really isn't that comforting to me.
Furthermore the fact that he didn't pull out his shares speaks either to the speed of the calamity at Bear or Cayne's stupidity - neither of which is very comforting since we are supposedly talking with one of the "experts" of Wall Street.
Relax folks, it's an interesting story. Is it supposed to be a PhD thesis? The folks here just don't like Gasparino and CNBC. Fine. Here's a tip: If you don't like reading Sir Charles, don't. Find a writer who will reinforce your existing opinions. It'll be kinder on your sphincter.
Gasparino is a what? He is not a journalist. He sound more like a fan of the subject than someone covering him. He couldn't have been more of a sycophant of Cayne. Tina, you can get first team folks to write for you, you don't need this guy.
I have yet to read , or listen to, anything by Mr Gasparino that doesnt contain the words "I was the first to report ..."
Wall street reporting at a "Hello" magazine intelligence level.
Its drivel.
Looks like Charlie Gasparino has added Jimmy Cayne to the list of slimebags,ie Dick Grasso, he's kissing up to for a story.
Looks like CNBC has taken over from Wall Streeters as the place where egotism and self obsession reins.
"As someone who lost close to one billion"... because he chose to "go down with his ship"? "I thought that showed character"? This is like the captain of the Titanic sitting in a lifeboat bemoaning his misfortune. Too bad about all those bodies in the water! Talk about a sense of entitlement. Talk about tone-deaf. I'm sure he'll suffer through it all, at his "country club in Florida". What a couple of self enablers, writer and subject both.
I agree with everyone here the Gasparino is a douchey turd. Hunter Thompson ruined journalism because now every douchey turd thinks he has to include himself as part of the story. Gasparino, no one cares about you. Stop telling us your personal story on how you got a story only to reveal you have no story.
This country is still strong on one export: douchebags.
...and I thought Chris Matthews was in a self-promotional class all alone...move over, Matthews, here's Gasparino and the whole CNBC network!
What a load of bullshit. How about some real financial news instead of the cya business about Cayne. Fallen? He should be in jail...just like the rest of the gamblers on Wall Street. Who's rich idea was it to make commercial banks get into investments anyway? If you don't know the answer to that, you're a self-described republic, free-market wolf in the middle class (what's left of it) and lower economic class Americans henhouses. Oh, the lack of shame and outright impunity of it all.
Forgive me if I'm not upset but rather near puking to learn that Cayne is no longer worth $1 billion but merely $50 to 100 million. Wow. How pitiful that he's reduced to playing bridge so often, but at least it's his next favorite game; gambling other peoples lives is (hopefully was) his first--forever.
Please. No more bullshit stories like this. The goddamn country is self-destructing and Gasparino has the stupidity to write a piece like this? To hell with the super rich and self-serving jerks that write and like CNBC fantasize about them.
Daily Beast, I hope you can become more relevant than this. Thank you.
Here's the link for Stewarts take down of CNBC:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220252&title=cnbc- gives-financial-advice
Gasparino is like all the other CNBC reporters; basically unaccomplished rumor-mongers. Cayne's transgressions were far less than his peers; and, he suffered enormous losses by sticking with his stock when he could have unloaded. I think Gasparino is a sychophantic gas bag; Cayne, for all his faults, is an unpretentious (albeit unrepentant) American icon.
Charlie~
I love you on CNBC and love your writing. Enjoy the stories of the personalities behind the names.
Dick Grasso is a hero to me. He kept things going after 9/11 and that meant a so much to our country.
Keep telling us of how Capitalism works. The snots making terrible comments above should be out picking asparagus, milking cows or moving sprinklers to find out what real work is.
I'll look forward to buying and reading your new book.
Charlie where is the story? You spoke more about your contact then given the reader insight. Just as I was settling down to read something good _ it never happened. Better luck next time.
What a bunch of fatheads targeting Charlie's ego on this blog site. Yes, he's got a big one. Try to get a word in edgewise when he's on a CNBC panel. But...I appreciate his forthrightness in reporting those fallible, selfish, unscrupulous slobs on Wall Street. Some one with enormous self-confidence has to take those creeps down.
Thank you.
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