Warren Spector, a co-president of Bear Stearns and their head of stock and bond trading, resigned yesterday. Though, for Spector, it reportedly was not a "you can't fire me, I quit" situation. The New York Times reported that James Cayne, the CEO, asked for Spector's resignation, adding "I can’t work with you anymore.” Spector was said to be "blindsided" by the request. However, this news likely does not come as a shock to many people following Bear Stearns: Two of their hedge funds failed last month, and Spector's departure was predicted by almost every major news outlet over this past weekend.

The crisis in the credit markets finally reached the executive suite of Wall Street firms last week, and the victim was an unexpected one: Warren J. Spector, a co-president at Bear Stearns who some had thought could become the firm’s next chief executive.

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.”

The news is said to have blindsided Mr. Spector, 49, who had spent his entire 24-year career at Bear and who at one point had become the largest individual shareholder after Mr. Cayne, who is 73.

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.

(Continue reading this story on NY Times)

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