Alan Greenberg, Bear Stearns Executive, Dies at 86
Alan C. “Ace” Greenberg, the former head of Bear Stearns investment bank and a major donor to Jewish causes, has died at 86.
Greenberg, famous on Wall Street for his hard-charging manner, appetite for risk, and financial acumen, died on Friday in Manhattan of complications from cancer.
He had been chief executive officer and then chairman of Bear Stearns, and was chairman of its executive committee when the financial firm collapsed in March of 2008 and was bought by JP Morgan Chase, an event that helped precipitate the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession.
Greenberg also was a major fundraiser for the UJA-Federation of New York, hosting an annual private dinner for its largest donors, and helping to preside over its annual Wall Street dinner. His own contributions to the New York Jewish federation ran regularly over a million dollars a year, and he also made substantial donations to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem – to help fix its bathrooms; and to build a middle school and sports center, named for his mother and father respectively, in the East Jerusalem settlement of Gilo.
Greenberg was born in Oklahoma City, and spent virtually his entire career at Bear Stearns, starting in 1949 as a clerk and working his way up to become CEO in 1978 and chairman in 1993. He often declared, during his reign at Bear Stearns, his disdain for MBAs in favor of “PSDs” — that is, people who were poor and smart, and who desired to be rich.
He is survived by his wife, two children, and five grandchildren.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO