Bear Stearns expects Q1 results significantly lower

An employee of Bear Stearns leaves as demonstrators from the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America protest outside the Bear Stearns headquarters in New York, March 26, 2008.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bear Stearns Cos BSC.N, the troubled investment bank being acquired by JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), on Thursday said it expects first-quarter results to be "significantly lower" than a year earlier.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Bear said the global liquidity crisis, a "repricing" of credit risk, and weakness in fixed-income, investment banking and asset management operations "created a difficult operating environment."

Bear said it cannot provide a reasonable estimate of operating results for the quarter ended February 29, but expects to file its quarterly report by April 14. The company reported a profit of $553.7 million, or $3.82 per share, in the year-earlier quarter, another SEC filing shows.

JPMorgan agreed last month to acquire Bear in an all-stock transaction then valued at $10 per share. The purchase kept Bear out of bankruptcy after liquidity evaporated. As part of the transaction, JPMorgan agreed to buy 95 million newly issued Bear shares, for a nearly 40 percent stake. That purchase closed this week.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)