May 27 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke met last month with the head of the firm managing $30 billion of Bear Stearns Cos. assets for the central bank, five weeks after the Fed rescued the investment bank from bankruptcy.

Bernanke met with BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Laurence Fink on April 23 at his office in Washington, according to the chairman's April schedule, obtained by Bloomberg News under a Freedom of Information Act request.

The meeting gave the Fed chief an opportunity to review the status of the assets it agreed to take on on March 16 to speed JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s purchase of Bear Stearns. Bernanke told lawmakers last month that he expected the Fed wouldn't lose money on the portfolio, which includes mortgage-backed debt, and may even earn a profit.

The central bank picked BlackRock, the biggest publicly traded U.S. fund company, to manage and sell the assets, repaying the Fed's $29 billion loan to a limited liability company holding the assets.

Fed spokesman David Skidmore had no comment on the meeting with Fink. New York-based BlackRock spokesman Brian Beades also declined to comment.

Bernanke, questioned in an April 2 Senate hearing about putting taxpayer money at risk, said BlackRock had gone ``through those assets, and they are confident, or at least reasonably confident, that we will be able to recover the full amount if we dispose of these assets on a measured basis, rather than to sell them all at once.''

JPMorgan is shouldering the first $1 billion of any losses on the portfolio.

Wal-Mart, Kraft

As Bernanke and his Fed colleagues gauged the effects of the credit-market turmoil and rising energy and food costs on the economic outlook, the Fed chief had a chance to hear from Wal- Mart Stores Inc. CEO Lee Scott on April 16 and Kraft Foods Inc. CEO Irene Rosenfeld on April 25.

The schedule included a slate of sessions with foreign officials who visited Washington for the Group of Seven central bankers and finance ministers sessions and the semiannual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Bernanke had breakfast with Bank of England Governor Mervyn King at the British Embassy on April 11 and met Hamad Saud al- Sayari, governor of Saudi Arabia's central bank, on April 14. A few days before the meetings, Bernanke had lunch with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the State Department, which is across the street from the Fed's buildings.

To contact the reporter on this story: Scott Lanman in Washington at slanman@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 27, 2008 17:53 EDT