Bear Stearns owned stock

This is an authentic stock certificate owned by the infamous Bear Stearns. for shares in the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. This is a rare opportunity to get a real stock certificate as a memento of the company. This is a very hard to find piece! I went through over 150,000 stock in my inventory over several days to find only a few (sadly). Fortunately, this is also a great looking cert as well.

The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. (NYSE: BSC) is the parent company of Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., one of the largest global investment banks and securities trading and brokerage firms in the world. The main business areas, based on 2006 net revenue distributions, are: capital markets (equities, fixed income, investment banking; just under 80%), wealth management (under 10%) and global clearing services (12%).

On March 16, 2008, under the supervision of the Federal Reserve, the company signed a merger agreement with JP Morgan Chase under which JP Morgan Chase would assume the counter-party risk and exercise management control over Bear Stearns pending shareholder approval. The Federal Reserve issued a non-recourse loan of $30 billion which would cover any losses in Bear Stearns' investments in mortgage-backed securities and exotic investment paper, with collateral to be managed by BlackRock. One week later, JP Morgan Chase increased the value of its purchase stock swap from $2.00/share to $10.00/share and reduced the loan from the Fed by $1 billion.

Historical info:
The company was founded in 1923 by Joseph Bear, Robert Stearns, and Harold Mayer as an equity trading house. It serves corporations, institutions, governments and individuals. The company's business includes corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, institutional equities and fixed income sales, trading and research, private client services, derivatives, foreign exchange and futures sales and trading, asset management and custody services. Through Bear Stearns Securities Corp., it offers global clearing services to broker dealers, prime broker clients and other professional traders, including securities lending. Bear Stearns is also known for one of the most widely read market intelligence pieces on the street, known as the "Early Look at the Market - Bear Stearns Morning View."

Bear Stearns' World Headquarters is located at 383 Madison Avenue, between E. 46th Street and E. 47th Street in Manhattan. The company currently employs more than 15,500 people worldwide. The firm is headquartered in New York City.

In 2005-2007, Bear Stearns was recognized as the "Most Admired" securities firm in Fortune’s "America's Most Admired Companies" survey, and second overall in the security firm section. The annual survey is a prestigious ranking of employee talent, quality of management and business innovation. This was the second time in the past three years that Bear Stearns had achieved this "top" distinction.