More JPM & Bear -- working too fast can hurt you

I pride myself in working efficiently so as not to run up client bills and to keep a deal moving. But I've had to teach myself over the years to slow down sometimes to try to avoid mistakes. We are all human, and now I often finish a task, let it sit overnight and then look at it again before sending something to the client just to be safe.

Of course, when you are under the gun you cannot always do that. That came up for me Friday when a client leaving town for the holiday needed a full set of documents for a deal in pronto. I got it done and correctly, too.

Now we're hearing there may have been some mistakes or inadvertent language included in the JPM/Bear deal. Here are links to Overlawyered and Above the Law about some language that may have helped lead to the retrading we're seeing. I'm not accusing anyone (I've read nothing, after all), but we're talking the best of the best law firms working on this, and reading this is a reminder that no one -- I mean no one -- is immune from doing something that could come back to bite you later.

Lesson: whenever you can, take your time. I even used to put a Post-It on my PC that said "SLOW DOWN." It's something good to remember.

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Bear's Manhattan space? Well, since you asked....

Jeff Brown wondered what would happen to Bear's dirt ion the wake of its collapse. Looks like we know what happens in Manhattan, and it's not a shocker. The Deal Junkie, citing Bloomberg, says that Bear's "best in the world" space will be occupied by JPMorgan Chase's investment bank. So, the IB guys win again. Go figure. And if tis deal goes down, what a great space for the money.

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Negative $1 billion?

That's what Kevin Kingston is telling us that Bear Stearns is actually worth when you take into account that its Manhattan HQ is probably worth about $1.2-1.3 billion alone. (But will it be still without an anchor tenant?)

As I write, it looks like the Fed's intervention over the weekend has helped, what with the market down only ~30 points as I type. (That can of course change in a flash.)

What does this mean for dirt? Well, the loss of thousands of jobs will mean more open space on the market, just what I feared previously, as JPMorgan Chase will just absorb the accounts. But it does not mean a total collapse. Bear rolled the dice and it came up 2, 3 and 12. The people on the don't pass line win. And could this mean a return to tangibles? Maybe. We know commodities are rising rapidly. But dirt? It is more affected by fundamentals. It does smack of more opportunity in the market this year for those waiting -- and with the wherewithal -- to pounce.

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