Bear Stearns co-president ousted

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More fallout at Bear Stearns from the crisis that began there with bad bets on mortgage-backed investments and which continues to roil the firm: Bear Stearns co-president Warren J. Spector was forced to resign, The New York Times reported Sunday afternoon. The N.Y. Times: ‘Wednesday, the firm’s chief executive, James E. Cayne, called Mr. Spector into his spacious office on the sixth floor of the Bear Stearns building on Madison Avenue. Sitting behind his half-moon desk surrounded by computer terminals, Mr. Cayne told Mr. Spector that he wanted his resignation. ‘I have to do this,’ he said, according to people who were briefed on the conversation. ‘I can’t work with you anymore.’

More: ‘Since two of its hedge funds collapsed in June, Bear Stearns and Mr. Cayne have become the public face of the plunging debt markets — a point that was underscored on Friday when Standard & Poor’s changed its outlook for the firm to negative from stable.’