Recent history has not been kind to James E. Cayne, the CEO who has been blamed for the collapse of Bear Stearns, the investment bank that was sold at a bargain basement price to JP Morgan Chase earlier this year.
“Perhaps unfairly, he will probably go down in the annals of finance as the Nero of the credit crisis,” writes William D. Cohan, in story to be published in the Aug. 18 edition of Fortune magazine.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map 
“Instead of fiddling while Bear Stearns burned, his detractors say he was golfing too regularly at the Hollywood Golf Club in Deal, N.J., and playing championship-level bridge in Nashville, San Francisco and Detroit.”
Cohan’s profile is based on a series of interviews with Cayne, the first he has granted since Bear Stearns was sold.
Among other details, the story reveals that Cayne battled a life-threatening illness last September as his company’s troubles began to mount.
On Sept. 11, 2007, Cayne was hospitalized with what turned out to be sepsis. In his case, the blood infection had begun with an infected prostate.
Cayne lost 30 pounds during his 10-day stay in the hospital.
His illness was not made public for fear the news hurt his firm’s stock price.
The story also expands upon earlier reports that Cayne was literally out-of-touch during parts of the Bear Stearns crisis, away from the home office and playing bridge.
“When playing tournaments, Cayne, who only recently got his first cell phone and has no BlackBerry, was hard to reach,” Cohan writes.
Consequently, Cayne, 74, seems to always be getting bad news late and arriving at key meetings after they have started.
And by his own admission, he wasn’t aware of how much Bear Stearns had borrowed to invest in two of its mortgage-based hedge funds.
“I didn’t stop it. I didn’t rein in the leverage,” Cayne says.
When the value of the funds dropped, lenders started pounding on Bear Stearns’ door and the company couldn’t meet its obligations.
At this point, Cayne, who was in the past a confident, instinctive decision-maker, describes himself as confused and hesitant.
“It was not knowing what to do,” he says. “It’s not being able to make a definitive decision one way or the other, because I just couldn’t tell you what was going to happen.”
Under Cayne’s leadership prior to the crisis, the value of Bear Stearns’ stock had risen to as much as $143 a share, making Cayne and many other employees very rich.
The sale of the firm cost Cayne $1 billion, leaving him with a net worth of $600 million.
After the sale, Cayne did not receive “a face-saving senior-level job at JP Morgan Chase,” Cohan writes.
Alan “Ace” Greenberg, the Bear Stearns CEO before Cayne, was named vice chairman emeritus at JP Morgan. Alan Schwartz, who took over as CEO at Bear Stearns after Cayne, was also offered a position at JP Morgan, though he’s leaving at the end of the month.
In the profile, Cayne takes a few shots at Greenberg, the man who hired him at Bear Stearns in part because he and Cayne both played bridge.
And Cayne recalls that during his job interview Greenberg asked him how well he played.
“‘Mr. Greenberg,’” Cayne responded. “‘If you study bridge the rest of your life, if you play with the best partners and you achieve your potential, you will never play bridge like I play bridge.’”
Click here to sign up for the Muckety Newsletter