Jefferies Group Inc., a Gotham city-based bank, said today that it swung to a second-quarter profit and capitalized on a fertile job candidate market.
The mid-sized firm posted $61.9 million in net income, compared with a loss of $4.4 million a year ago.
Revenue in the three-month period surged 14% to $668 million.
These are the spoils for a shop that stuck to its knitting, rather than jumping on the real-estate bubble.
In the past 18 months, Jefferies has laid off about 500 of its 2,500 workers and hired, in turn, 300 people in focused areas like healthcare, including about 200 this year.
CEO Richard Handler called the past 14 months a hiring "opportunity of a lifetime," though he said the bank firm will grow more slowly and strategically in the months to come.
Specifically, Jefferies has its eyes out for gurus in energy, industrials, technology and financial services.
"The onslaught of talent that wanted to join a firm like ours may have come to a close for now," Handler told a FINS colleague.
Jefferies, in fact, may have been too opportunistic; UBSsued it for poaching at least 36 i-bankers. The lawsuit has been dropped.
"For the next period of time, we're much more about integrating and executing," said Jefferies Chairman Brian Friedman. "I think it's a ways before we're back even at 2,500."
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