Dimon puts a word in for Bear staff victims
By Francesco Guerrera
Published: May 19 2008 03:00 | Last updated: May 19 2008 03:00

In the aftermath of JPMorgan Chase's rescue takeover of Bear Stearns in March, a number of Wall Street executives received an unexpected phone call from Jamie Dimon.

The chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan had a typically forthright message to deliver: "Stop trying to poach Bear employees".

At the time, Mr Dimon was angry that rivals were trying to lure Bear's bankers away with big money offers and not-so-subtle attempts to exploit their frustration at the firm's meek capitulation into the hands of JPMorgan.

But over the past two months, as JPMorgan moved to absorb Bear, Mr Dimon has taken a more conciliatory approach.

In letters to more than 30 of JPMorgan's clients, rivals and suppliers, Mr Dimon urged them to hire some of the 5,000-plus Bear employees who will not have a job after the takeover closes next month.

"We would like to connect you with some highly skilled professionals who may not have roles at our company but who may be a great fit for open positions at yours," says one of the letters.

Mr Dimon's letter-writing - he is planning to pen 60 or so more missives - is part of an all-out effort by JPMorgan to find jobs for displaced Bear employees.

Named Talent Network, the plan is unprecedented in a US financial industry that has built a deserved reputation for over-hiring in boom times and ruthless firing in bust years.

By asking more than 1,800 companies and scores of headhunters to provide them with the list of vacancies, JPMorgan executives hope to be able to find jobs for at least 2,500 of the 5,000 redundant Bear employees.

The job-seeking effort is still at an early stage, but has been coupled with a hiring freeze in areas where the two banks overlapped and a review of whether outside contractors, who have been with JPMorgan for more than a year, can be replaced by Bear employees.

JPMorgan is spending millions of dollars on the Talent Network but the payback could be significant.

First, a successful job placement would go a long way to quell the angst felt by many Bear bankers at having to sell their shares to JP-Morgan for just $10 apiece - which is substantially less than the shares' peak valuaton. That, in turn, would reduce the desire by freshly-fired Bear employees to bad-mouth JPMorgan to new clients and employers.

Second, finding jobs for Bear employees may reduce JPMorgan's bill for redundancies and pay-offs, thus easing the financial pressures arising from the Bear acquisition.

In addition, the template of the Talent Network could be applied to Mr Dimon's next takeover move.

With JPMorgan widely expected to pounce on a regional retail bank soon, it might soon need to find jobs for thousands more displaced employees following that takeover.

But perhaps more importantly, the unusual effort to find jobs for unwanted employees could enable JPMorgan to claim it is moving away from Wall Street's dog-eat-dog culture.

In the words of Maureen Osborne, the senior JPMorgan executive who has day-to-day responsibility for the Talent Network, "it sends a strong message about the kind of company that we are.

"We really believe that there is a lot of good talent at Bear and it is the right thing to do to help them find positions inside and outside the company," she added.

 

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008