Two amendments that became part of the Senate's Wall Street reform package Thursday promise to alter – and perhaps eliminate – many jobs in the big three credit rating firms. The provision added at the request of Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., creates a government-appointed panel "to match rating agencies on a semi-random basis with debt issuers," according to Reuters. "That could ease pressures the agencies face to assign rosy ratings... Read more

Retaining high-producing financial advisors is the heart of UBS's plans for its Americas wealth management business, the division's chief says. At a UBS conference Tuesday, Bob McCann, the head of UBS Wealth Management Americas division, told investors he has four planks for turning the business around: reducing attrition, continued cost-cutting, raising advisors' production, and expanding lending. He also acknowledged a "divide" between senior management and advisors caused a "significant morale problem,"... Read more

Citadel's latest high-level departure opens more than an opportunity for a seasoned executive to fill the role of securities division chief vacated by Patrick Edsparr this week. It also opens a window on the two-way risk of casting one's lot with an employer where management turnover is a way of life. "Citadel always had tremendous turnover," says investment banking headhunter Richard Lipstein of Boyden Global Executive Search. He says Edsparr's... Read more

As securities trading and research take a higher profile within its recovering investment bank, UBS formed a securities research unit that melds equity and fixed-income coverage under the leadership of Mark Steinert, its former global equity research chief. It's the Swiss institution's latest step toward nurturing trading profits, the main growth engine lately for both UBS and its main European and U.S.-based rivals. The bank plans to hire hundreds more sales... Read more

Hewitt hires Shaughnessy from Rogerscasey as senior investment consultant, Parikh and Friedman from Mercer as senior pension risk consultants, three others for roles in manager research. All the positions are new [Pensions & Investments] Casimir Capital hires Morgan Stanley's Atwell to launch new research division focused on commodities and mining companies [Casimir Capital, via PRN] BofA Merrill Lynch promotes Arth to president of Bank of America Business Capital from eastern division executive... Read more

Mike Buttner, Tim Mullins Join Wells Fargo Mortgage Bond Team [Bloomberg] Bloomberg says the bank's "building a team to package and trade mortgage-backed securities and curb reliance on Wall Street firms as a market recovery takes hold. AIS Hedge Fund Admin. Appoints Dan J. Schulman as General Counsel [Hedgeco.Net] Former Goldman Energy Trader Saiz Planning Commodity Hedge Fund [Bloomberg] BNP Paribas Adds to Prime Brokerage Business in North Ameri... Read more

Federal prosecutors are in the early stages of an investigation into whether Goldman Sachs's mortgage trading crossed the line into criminal fraud. Though the probe was kicked off after a referred from the SEC, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office is apparently looking into several issues that aren't related to the agency's civil action against Goldman. Criminal Probe Looks Into Goldman Trading [WSJ] Think Blankfein Will Resign? Want to Bet? [NY Times] Bank... Read more

If you're on Wall Street today and you hear an unusual amount of noise outside, it's probably from the 10,000 people organizers hope will show up to let you know how they're annoyed they are. The march -against federal bank bailouts and for more jobs - is scheduled to run from 4 to 6 p.m., according to the website of one of the organizers, the AFL-CIO. Yesterday, unions staged similar, though... Read more

Piper Jaffray has scaled back previous plans to hire more than 50 additional bankers and traders during 2010, and is close to completing its reduced goal of 30 new hires for the year. After hiring about 60 "senior producers" during 2009, Piper initially planned a similar target for this year. Instead, Chief Executive Andrew Duff says the Minneapolis-based bank is "moderating" and "re-mixing" staffing plans, so as "to keep driving... Read more

First Republic Bank hires Beverly Buker from Citi Private Bank's Manahattan region as senior managing director in Boston [First Republic] BofA hires Nomura's Meissner as EMEA banking head. Jotwani, Nomura's global head of fixed-income, will add EMEA CEO role upon Sayeed's retirement [WSJ] Jefferies hires three high-yield fixed-income traders for aviation and transport sector [Jefferies & Co. ] Scotiabank adds Nicole Reich de Polignac to executive management team as EVP. She remains president... Read more

Goldman Sachs's record fixed-income trading revenue last quarter may open even more career opportunities for traders at other top global banks than for Goldman's own traders, in view of new market-share headwinds the SEC's fraud lawsuit could blow in the face of the long-time pacesetter. While Goldman's fixed-income, currencies and commodities (FICC) business soared, first-quarter investment banking revenue declined from last year's fourth quarter as merger advisory business remained slow. Both... Read more

Small firms are gaining on big brokerage firms. A report by consulting firm Aite Group says Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, UBS and Wells Fargo Advisors lost a combined $900 billion, or 16 percent, of assets under management during the last two years, Reuters reports. Aite expects the trend to continue, albeit more slowly. The trend will continue, Aite said, though at a more modest pace. As the market settles... Read more

Fixed-income trading remained the key driver of big banks' profits and hiring last quarter. Goldman Sachs earnings due early Tuesday will fill in a key data point: Are other bulge-bracket institutions regaining market share they'd lost to Goldman in the past two years? Unlike JPMorgan and Bank of America, Goldman is expected to report first-quarter revenue from fixed-income trading declined from the same period of 2009. For example, Barclays Capital analyst... Read more

Citigroup's first-quarter results offer some comfort for the bank's traders, less for investment bankers. While revenues across most areas in Citi's securities and banking segment posted steep declines compared with the 2009 first quarter, a different picture emerges when comparing the past quarter's numbers with more recent periods last year. Citi's $1.06 billion total investment banking revenue (from advisory, equity and debt underwriting) was the softest since the first quarter... Read more

TIAA-CREF hires The Hartford's Weaver as chief marketing and communications officer, succeeding Goldstein [TIAA-CREF, via BW] Freddie Mac Hires ResCap's Renzi As EVP of single family portfolio management, a new position focusing on loss management and mitigation [Freddie Mac] MidSouth Bank hires Miller as SVP and director of M&A and names two current executives to new M&A team. Miller most recently headed investor relations at Security Bank Corp. which failed last July... Read more

Just as other authorities are proposing changes that reduce the need for credit rating firms and their analysts, Finra tightened mutual fund disclosure rules in a way likely to steer more work toward the rating firms. The self-regulatory agency ordered firms that state a weighted average bond rating for funds they sell to use a "nationally recognized statistical rating organization" to determine the average rating of securities in the fund –... Read more

Barclays Capital has turned its sights to Australia. The London-based bank, after dramatically expanding its footprint in the U.S. in recent years, is launching launching a new foreign exchange and interest-rate trading business based in Sydney. Barclays has already hired or moved 15 people to Sydney, where its headcount has climbed to 100 from 40 over the past 12 months, according to The Wall Street Journal. Barclays's expansion in Australia is part... Read more

The careers of credit analysts in the big three credit rating firms dodged one bullet that aimed at their core business of grading companies' ability to repay debts. Now some of them are staring down the barrel of a new gun that the SEC just pointed at the rating firms' mandate to grade asset-backed securities, which at one time accounted for more than half their revenue. The New York Times reports: Credit... Read more

Many graduate business schools are maintaining or expanding career services for MBA students, even while investment losses cut into overall university budgets. Career services offerings remain rich at the business schools of Harvard, Notre Dame, Yale, Cornell, Stanford, and USC, administrators at each institution tell eFinancialCareers News. At the same time, many institutions - including some within the Ivy League - have reduced career services staff and travel due to budget... Read more