One Year Ago: A Roaring Bear Stearns
As the speculation around Bear Stearns turns from when and if to how and by whom, the below excerpt from The Observer's John Koblin shows just how far the investment bank has tumbled in little over a year. The excerpt is from a story dated Jan. 21, 2007.
When it comes to the relentless pursuit of prime Manhattan real estate in the last six months, Bear Stearns is unmatched.
After taking 240,000 square feet in two leases last year, the I-bankers are closing in on a 106,000-square-foot expansion at 237 Park Avenue, according to three sources...
Bear Stearns already has 148,000 square feet at the Park Avenue Atrium at 237 Park, and will expand by taking space once held by Revlon.
While most brokers are still rubbing their eyes in the wake of the New Year, Bear Stearns has smashed through the gates with a lease that’s the largest deal of 2007 so far.
And if I-bankers are an aggressive group by nature, then Bear Stearns has used that edge to seek out large blocks of space: Add it up, and the firm will have taken nearly 350,000 feet in midtown north in the last six months.
Now that its edge has turned decidedly dull, what will become of Bear Stearns' office space? Or, more importantly, the employees who occupy it?
43 CLARKSON
Dramatic perspectives from every room in this condo loft triplex penthouse... More details |
|
I have a feeling NYC condo and co-op flippers can say goodbye to their flipping days. Adios! The real-estate powers that be in NYC seemed to think they were still an island of flipper heaven, when the rest of the country had long-turned into a flipper hell. Welcome to the real world. I'm sorry to break the news but the party is over.
This story is a big story and it's a financial earthquake that's sending major tremors around the world. The FAULT line extends from NYC to Washington D. C. "Fault" is the operative word, and there's a lot of blame to go around. I don't know about you, but I'm marking the days on my calendar until the Bushies leave office. No doubt they're marking the days off too, because they anxious to leave Washington.
As long as the current Washington financial players remain players, there's no fix. How can can anyone have faith in Chief Ben? This guy failed to the see the red flags during the real-estate bubble, when every red flag was pointing in flashing neon lights: Bubble, Bubble, Bubble. It defied logic how these bright, intelligent economists could be asleep at the wheel. Needless to say, a few heads must roll and soon. How can anyone, who failed to see a problem, fix the problem?
BTW, a few major players at Bear Stearns cashed out their stock portfolios for millions. Good job! Cashing out at $2.00 a share doesn't bring a lot of financial rewards. These major players at Bear Stearns followed the Ken Lay rule book.
This is great. Those real estate boneheads need to be brought down to earth. I hope they're living in the YMCA this time next year.
Fort Apache, here we come!!
Woo Hoo!!! Bye Bye Old York Times! Down with the gray lady; a rag of a newspaper, not fit for the birdcage. Murdoch will bring back fair and balanced reporting to its pages.
Howell Raines: NY Times Vulnerable to Murdoch
By: Jim Meyers
Former New York Times Executive Editor Howell Raines believes the “unthinkable” is now possible — News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch buying the Times.
Writing in Portfolio.com, Raines recalled a conversation he had with Murdoch in 2002 in which Murdoch advised Raines on how to conduct a “newspaper war” with the Wall Street Journal, which Murdoch recently bought.
“You ought to hit them where they live,” Murdoch said. “Go after hard business news and beat them on their strength.”
Raines observes: “It seems obvious to me that Murdoch now plans to do to the Times what he was advising me to do to the Journal. He will spend whatever it takes to undermine the Times’ standing as America’s leading general-interest newspaper.”
But Raines said his “biggest fear” is that Murdoch, or some other “unsuitable purchaser,” will then buy the Times by pressuring the Sulzberger family, which controls most of the company’s voting stock.
Times Co. stock recently dropped below $15 a share, down from a peak of $53 in 2002, as the company’s financial troubles have mounted.
“This situation creates a psychological environment that Murdoch can exploit if his plan of pouring money into the Journal has the intended effect of keeping the Times Co.’s stock price down,” Raines writes.
The Sulzberger family’s anxiety over the stock price, the Times’ financial woes, and the “emergence of Murdoch as the most powerful individual in mass communications” could “bring us to the point where the unthinkable is possible.”
Raines believes that a Murdoch takeover of the Times, “our last independent national newspaper,” would be a “disaster for the trustworthy reporting on which our civic life depends.”
He adds that a Murdoch associate once told him that Murdoch said about the Times: “I’d love to buy it to close it.” Said Raines: “I believe the first part of that quote is true, the latter part a joke.”