JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to buy Bear Stearns Cos. for $240 million, about 90 percent less than its value last week, after a run on the company ended 85 years of independence for Wall Street’s fifth-largest securities firm, Bloomberg reported.

Shareholders of Bear Stearns will get stock in JPMorgan worth about $2 a share, compared with Bear Stern’s stock price of $30 at the close on March 14, the New York-based companies said in a statement late yesterday. The Federal Reserve is providing financial backing to JPMorgan, and also cut the rate on direct loans to banks in emergency weekend action to hold off a broader market panic.

JPMorgan, led by CEO Jamie Dimon, bought Bear Stearns, once the biggest underwriter of U.S. mortgage bonds, for less than the value of its real estate after clients, alarmed by speculation about a cash shortage, withdrew $17 billion in two days. Faced with the prospect of bankruptcy, Bear Stearns CEO Alan Schwartz was forced to accept the deal less than five days after he assured investors that the company’s “liquidity cushion” was sufficient to weather credit-market losses.