$1 Million Viagra Donation Adds To Eccentric Reputation

WALL STREET kingpin Greenberg is known for charitable giving, but he contributes in his own way.

NEW YORK - Alan "Ace" Greenberg's reputation as Wall Street's oddball wizard is getting quite a boost.

The longtime chairman of Bear Stearns is using his spoils from years of rising profits to buy $1 million worth of Viagra prescriptions for people who can't afford them. While critics say other causes are more deserving, the impotence-drug donation certainly jibes with Greenberg's offbeat stature in the buttoned-down world of high finance.

"This is very important to a lot of people, both men and women, and if this helps people, why not? . . . He's not hurting anyone," said Muriel Siebert, a veteran Wall Street contemporary who runs her own brokerage firm.

Greenberg, 70, has donated to many charitable causes, including Jewish organizations and the New York Public Library. And he has long required that employees of Bear Stearns, one of the nation's largest investment firms, donate 4 percent of their salaries to charity.

As his Viagra giveaway shows, Greenberg also isn't afraid to do things a little differently.

Bear Stearns' site on the Internet touts Greenberg as a "professional-level magician," as well a dog trainer and fervent bridge player. In 1995, the multimillionaire took a cameo role in a little-seen film called "Milk & Money" as a financier whose apartment building temporarily becomes home to a herd of cows.

Several years ago, he gave the Israel Museum in Jerusalem money to renovate its bathrooms and had a plaque installed in one room to honor his brother. In "Memos from the Chairman," a book of Greenberg's memos to employees, many are written in the voice of his fictitious alter-ego, Haimchinkel Malintz Anaynikal.

Greenberg said last week that he consulted his wife before deciding on the Viagra donation.

"She said, `You're usually nuts, but if you really want to do it, go ahead!' " he said.

Once a college football player, the Kansas-born and Oklahoma-raised Greenberg is well-known for a gruff, bulldog-like demeanor that has propelled his career since joining Bear Stearns as a clerk in 1949.

He was made a general partner in 1958, around the time he fought off colon cancer.

After that battle, Greenberg has said, he was determined to make his personal life as fulfilling as his business career.

Greenberg became Bear Stearns' chief executive in 1978 and led its 1985 transition into a publicly owned company.

In its last fiscal year, Bear Stearns' profit jumped 25 percent to $613 million. Greenberg shared in the good fortune, pocketing a $20 million bonus.

Even after nearly 40 years on Wall Street, he still is known as a guy who saves paper clips and ties broken rubber bands back together. But his free-spending ways when it comes to Viagra may not end with his $1 million gift.

"Depending on demand, I might add to it," Greenberg said. "It can only go up, not down."