The new rallying cry on Wall Street: litigate, litigate, litigate.
UBS AG sued Jeffries Group Inc. in New York last week for poaching its entire health-care i-banking team, calling the mass hiring a "pre-meditated raid." According to the lawsuit, Jeffries successfully wooed at least 36 people from the Swiss bank.
Yesterday, UBS won a temporary restraining order against the defendant and its former employees.
These types of filings are nothing new, but they are becoming fairly common. Merrill Lynch slapped a similar suit on Deutsche Bank in early March over a dozen bankers. The two finance giants are still slugging it out over that one.
The real question is whether the suits will make any headhunters think twice or if they will just continue to burn up money in legal fees.
Those of us in the cheap seats are hoping for the latter; the filings make for such juicy reading.
Shotgun Honeymoon
Brian Moynihan, the guy handling the BofA/Merrill Lynch honeymoon, says employees are committed to boosting the bank back to the "preeminence" that it deserves. I guess he wasn't talking about the 100-plus high-caliber people who defected. About those folks, Moynihan says that they are being replaced. (Financial-Planning.com)
Green Shoots in Asia
Asian i-banking is fertile ground these days. In the first half of the year, stock and debt issuances in the region were up 40%. (WSJ)
The Hedges Are Growing Too
With an almost 10% average return, hedge funds are on pace for their best year since 1999. (WSJ)
Connecticut Sees Pink
Hartford Financial Services Group and The Phoenix Companies Inc., both insurance shops, have laid off 685 Connecticut workers since late last year, including a recent round of 285. Hartford is left with about 12,000 bodies; while Phoenix is down to 720. (Courant)
Meanwhile, in the Heartland
FBL Financial Group, which insures a swath of U.S. cropland, is laying off 71 people in the Midwest starting at the end of July. Rain and Hail LLC, another Iowa-based agriculture insurer, is picking up part of FBL's business. (DesmoinesRegister) And Integra Bancorp is laying off 65 workers and trimming executive pay. The suffering Kentucky-based bank apparently found itself with some bad loans on its hands. Go figure? (CourierPress)
London Exchange Goes Short
The London Stock Exchange is shorting 60 jobs in the British capital and an unspecified number of positions at its Italian unit, Borsa Italiana. The company's 1,100 or so employees are split between the countries. (FT)
Big leagues to B-school
MBA programs are pitching to a new demographic: pro athletes. They are hard workers, team players and many are flat broke after only a few years of retirement. Some of the leagues are become de facto recruiters. (BW)