April 11 (Bloomberg) -- Lazard Ltd., the New York-based investment bank, may be paid as much as $20 million for advising Bear Stearns Cos. on its sale to JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Lazard, led by Bruce Wasserstein, got some of the money when the original merger agreement was signed on March 16 and will earn another portion if the deal is consummated, JPMorgan said in a filing today with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Bear Stearns was advised by Gary Parr, the New York- based head of Lazard's financial-services practice.

Bear Stearns said in a separate filing today that the ``liquidity crisis' that forced the firm to accept JPMorgan's takeover offer had whittled down assets under management by 20 percent to $36 billion as of March 24 from $45 billion on Nov. 30. Bear Stearns also said it recognized a $200 million loss in the second quarter in connection with municipal securities trusts.

JPMorgan agreed to buy Bear Stearns, once the fifth-biggest U.S. securities firm, on March 16 for about $2 a share after customers and lenders fled because of speculation that the company faced a cash shortage. The Federal Reserve stepped in to broker the sale and provide funding to avert Bear Stearns's collapse. JPMorgan raised the price to $10 a share a week later to quell concerns that shareholders would reject the deal.

Private equity firm J.C. Flowers & Co. offered to pay $3 billion for a 90 percent equity stake in Bear Stearns one day before JPMorgan's initial offer to buy the securities firm for about $240 million, according to the bank's filing.

The March 15 proposal from Flowers, founded by former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker J. Christopher Flowers, fell apart the next day when his company failed to get bank financing for the deal and backing from the Fed, according to the filing, which refers to Flowers as ``Bidder A.'' He didn't return a phone call seeking comment.

To contact the reporter on this story: Zachary R. Mider in New York at zmider1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 11, 2008 21:51 EDT