SWINGING JIMMY’S ON ‘COURSE’ AT BEAR

Some shareholders of beleaguered Bear Stearns complain that CEO Jimmy Cayne is spending too much time on the golf course at the expense of business – and it hasn’t even helped his game.

Despite the near-collapse of a Bear Stearns hedge fund and the meltdown of junk mortgage bonds it peddled widely, Cayne has been ducking out of the office regularly to tee off – including on three of the firm’s worst days in years.

“I guess he didn’t want to think about all the troubles, so he went out on the course,” said one portfolio chief.

“There’s probably nothing he could have done anyway since [mortgage bonds] were flawed from the beginning,” the person added.

Cayne, 73, is known to rush from Wall Street by chopper to the exclusive New Jersey shore enclave of Deal in order to get in 18 holes at the private Hollywood Golf Club before dark.

According to online postings about his golf game, Cayne was on the course on Thursday, June 14 – the day Bear Stearns reported an embarrassing 10 percent drop in profits. The following Thursday he also was on the links as Wall Street recoiled from moves by other big banks to squeeze Bear Stearns for more money to back up loans to a collapsing hedge fund.

And sure enough, the following day – when Bear Stearns had to put up a stunning bailout pledge of $3.2 billion to rescue its imploding hedge fund – he was back at Hollywood taking his swings.

Still, despite those added hours on the course, his game only got worse. On June 14 he shot a 96; on June 22 a 98. He split the difference with a 97 the next day.

Most institutional investors resisted commenting on Cayne’s golf habits while others found they weren’t out of line.

“Being a 7-handicap myself, when you go out of the office you’re always in contact with what’s happening,” said one investment firm’s CEO. “His scores are so bad, I think he’s spending too much time at work,” quipped a portfolio chief.

A closer look, though, would suggest there’s not much correlation between the golf games of the Street’s big bosses and their business success.

Bear Stearns stock is down 11.6 percent this year while Cayne’s handicap has been a respectable 15.9 strokes above par. The worst golfer among the big bank chiefs is Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein, with a handicap of 32.1, but his company’s shares hold the title for the best one-year return, nearly 52 percent, with a 12 percent gain year-to-date.

And Lehman Brothers’ Dick Fuld is the best golfer among his peers with a 10.3 handicap. But his bank’s stock is down 4.17 percent this year.