Bear Stearns' Offers Rescinded

For the past few days rumors were swirling that JPMorgan would indeed be rescinding recent job offers made by Bear Stearns, and today it became official. In a move that comes as no surprise, half of the undergraduate and graduate students who recently received job offers from Bear were told that the offers no longer stood. The news affected some 250 students who were planning on either interning at Bear this summer or soon becoming a full-time employee.

The cuts came mostly in areas where there was overlap with JPMorgan such as M&A, equity underwriting and corporate finance. Offers in investment management and other areas such as commodities, merchant banking and prime brokerage (Bear's jewel) were unaffected.

There is a thin silver lining for those on the receiving end of the bad news. As reported by Reuters here, summer interns "will be offered 10 weeks of pay if they work for a certain nonprofit organization and will get an early chance to apply for fall positions," and "graduates denied full-time jobs will keep their signing and relocation bonuses and will have access to career services."

Inside sources tell Vault that career counselors at schools where the affected students attend have been reaching out to other investment banks, gauging job availability there.

Meanwhile, full-time Bear employees are bracing themselves for the piece of bad news that won't be far behind this one.