Bear Stearns Rescinds Offers

Bear Stearns, the storied investment bank that stunned Wall Street when it collapsed last month, is rescinding approximately half of its 2008 summer internship and job offers in response to its recent takeover by J.P. Morgan Chase.

The rescinded offers mostly come from positions that have overlap with J.P. Morgan’s operations, such as the investment banking division.

“In those divisions,” such as commodity and prime brokerage, “where there’s little or no overlap with J.P. Morgan, the offers will likely be honored,” J.P. Morgan spokesman Brian J. Marchiony said.

Marchiony added that students who lost their full-time job offers will not be left empty-handed.

“[They] will be able to retain their sign-on and relocation bonuses and have the opportunity to use our career placement services,” Marchiony said.

J.P. Morgan is also providing an alternative summer plan for students who had their internships withdrawn. If they work at one of the many non-profit organizations selected by J.P. Morgan, those students will receive their full internship salary, according to Marchiony.

Marchiony tried to assure prospective applicants that future recruitment would not be affected by the recent downturn in the market.

“Recruiting talented people from Harvard and other top schools absolutely remains one of our biggest priorities,” he said.

Marchiony added that the troubles with Bear and the takeover by J.P. Morgan was a “unique situation,” and that it is not typical for job offers to be extended and then subsequently rescinded.

Daniel A. F. Demetri ’09, a computer science concentrator whose internship at Bear Stearns’s asset management division has turned into an internship with J.P. Morgan, said he was not very worried when he found out about Bear’s downfall.

“I was a little bit concerned of what I will be doing,” Demetri said, “but no more so than any other student who has gotten through e-recruiting and hasn’t gotten an offer.”

When asked if the change had affected his future career outlook, Demetri said, “Not at all—if anything, it’s a good thing.”

“I wasn’t that surprised,” he added. “Bear Stearns hasn’t been doing that well for a long time.”

Demetri recommended that students be judicious in their job decisions, saying that they should be “risk averse in choosing the firm that they are having internship with, just because losing an internship offer would have been really bad.”