JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s chief executive confirmed Tuesday that the bank will be keeping nearly half of the employees at Bear Stearns Cos., the struggling investment bank that JPMorgan agreed to buy in March.
At JPMorgan's annual shareholder meeting, CEO James Dimon said in his opening remarks, "We're retaining 45 percent of the Bear Stearns staff."
Most of those job offers have already been made. Last week, Dimon said at a conference that it had offered jobs to 6,000 of the 14,000 Bear Stearns workers, and found positions outside the company for another 1,500.
Dimon has said that the acquisition of Bear Stearns will result in job cuts at JPMorgan, but would not say how many during Tuesday's meeting.
JPMorgan stepped in in March to acquire Bear Stearns at the behest of the Federal Reserve to prevent a collapse of the investment bank that could have potentially damaged the global financial system, which has already been slammed by the troubled mortgage market.
With that acquisition comes all of Bear Stearns' mortgage-linked assets.
The deal "is a very risky and tough proposition," Dimon said Tuesday. But he reiterated that he believes Bear will addd about $1 billion to JPMorgan's earnings by 2009.
The deal is expected to be completed the weekend of June 1, after a shareholder vote on May 29.
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