Bear Stearns Chairman Sells $1B Stake for $61M

Bear Stearns Chairman Jimmy Cayne yesterday became the poster boy for the company’s fall from grace, selling his one-time $1 billion stake in the investment bank for a mere $61.3 million, reports the Wall Street Journal. Cayne sold 5.7 million shares he’d acquired for $10.84 each, a far cry from the $159 they were worth last April.

The share has traded as low as $2.84 in the two weeks since the company agreed to be rescued from almost certain failure by JPMorgan and the Federal Reserve. Cayne is said to have sold for personal reasons: he and his wife are buying a $26-million apartment in the newly renovated Plaza Hotel in New York. (More Bear Stearns stories.)