Business Diary: Former Bear boss busts out at poker

It seems that Steven Begleiter is rather better at casinos than he was at casino capitalism. The former Bear Stearns head of corporate strategy came within an ace (literally) of a shot at the $22m first prize of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

The unlucky former executive busted out after his pair of queens were beaten by a rival who, starting out with Ace Queen, paired his aces on the final card to be drawn. Don't feel too sorry for him, though. After outlasting 6,489 other players for his sixth place finish, he still made a cool $1.59m. Unlike his former colleagues on Wall Street, there'll be no deferrals or clawbacks to worry about either.

But the cub keeps a papa bear on Wall St

No card tables for Theodore (Ted) Dimon. The venerable broker is still going strong on Wall Street, having just joined Bear Stearns Private Client Services at the ripe old age of 78. Of course, it helps to have connections in high places, and you couldn't get much higher than Mr Dimon's. His son Jamie is a real chip off the old block, holding the position of chief executive of JP Morgan Chase, which just happens to own the business, thanks to its takeover of the failed investment bank Bear Stearns in March 2008. This way, at least Dimon Jnr won't have very far to go if he ever feels in need of some fatherly advice.

Chime's getting all clumsy with its names

Here's a marriage among City spin doctors, with Pelham Public Relations being swallowed by Chime, Lord Bell's sprawling marketing operation, for an undisclosed sum (not much, then). The firm will be merged with Chime's existing financial PR operation, Bell Pottinger, to form the clumsy-sounding Pelham Bell Pottinger. It'll take some spin doctor to make that sound good.

K1 founder to crack court case as diplomat

We're now getting into the truly strange as fall-out from the credit crunch continues. Helmut Kiener, founder of the hedge fund K1, failed to secure release from jail yesterday after his lawyers claimed he enjoyed the status of a diplomat for Guinea-Bissau. He's fighting a case brought by banks including Barclays and BNP Paribas which may have lost millions and are not pleased with his alleged "lavish personal spending".

Number of the day: 9 per cent of UK companies' shares could not be traded from 3pm yesterday after a technical glitch at the Stock Exchange.