'I was glad to see that Here Is The City at last came out and recognised the difficult task JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and his management team have had in dealing with the rescue / integration of Bear Stearns.

In the 3 weeks or so since the JPMorgan Chase / Bear deal was announced, our firm (and specifically Jamie Dimon) has been held out as the bad guys - the folks who took advantage of Bear during a time of great difficulty and moved quickly to pick up the firm on the cheap. The reality, however, was very different.

Whether we approached the Fed, or the Fed approached us, I don't know (I'm not senior enough to have been involved in the initial negotiations), but I do know that Bear was facing bankruptcy and that, unless we moved quickly, then the firm would have collapsed with the loss of many more jobs than are likely to go now. Dimon and his team had to undertake due diligence in a matter of hours, and had to complete a takeover which would have normally taken weeks to carefully negotiate. Our boss had a tricky path to thread - he had to succeed in the task of preventing Bear's fall, but had also to ensure that he was acquiring it at a price that reflected the potential risk to our firm, which was difficult to evaluate given Bear's uncertain liquidity and liability positions. In the end, Dimon struck a deal at what he considered the right price, but revisited that price when he had more time at his disposal and more information at hand. That was the sensible business-like thing to do.

Emotions always run high during a time of change, and the Bear situation has been particularly difficult for staff there, who clearly didn't see it coming. In most takeovers, staff usually have some indication that something is afoot, but on this occasion events moved so quickly that no-one was properly prepared when the acquisition was announced. The distinct culture and entrepreneurial spirit at Bear also makes it difficult for staff to accept that they have lost their independence (as well, in some cases, as a significant percentage of their net worth).

But exactly who are these 'bad guys' over at JPMorgan Chase anyway ? Well, many of us are from places like Bank One, Chase Manhattan, Chemical Bank, JPMorgan and Manufacturers Hanover Trust. Most of us, too, were uncertain what the future would hold when the firms we had worked in for years merged or were taken over. Many of us were worried about our future job prospects, and saw close long-term colleagues lose their jobs when the lay-offs began post merger(s). Most of us also felt that we had worked somewhere special, and that we would soon lose our corporate values and unique cultures. So, we do have some understanding of how Bear staff feel. And the message has gone out, despite some of the things that you read in the press, that we should thread carefully. That we shouldn't treat Bear staff as the vanquished, and that we should make things as easy as possible during the transition. And you should reflect, too, that some decent JPMorgan staff will lose their jobs as a result of this acquisition - the selection criteria for the new organisation will be based firmly on the principle of the 'best person for the job'.

Although, when we look back on this episode, we will have to acknowledge that we made mistakes - we might have been insensitive at times to Bear staff needs, we may have moved too quickly to claim the so-called 'spoils of war', and we may end up laying off some of the wrong people (on both sides), JPMorgan Chase and its executive team have genuinely tried to do the right thing. They have insisted that we treat our Bear colleagues with respect and that we try to understand the sensitivities of the situation. They have also come good with both the retention and severance packages offered to Bear staff, which are fairly generous considering where we are in the business cycle.

In summary, we welcome Bear staff to our firm and look forward to working together to make our new combined business even greater. The further diversity that this acquisition will bring will only enhance our reputation and help improve our performance. Although it will involve compromise and understanding on both sides, there is a future for Bear staff and a significantly better one than if the firm had been forced into bankruptcy. Jamie did good on this one, and we all should acknowledge it'.

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