Weak IPO market spurs investment bank layoffs.

Investment News, June, 2001 by Strahler, Steven R.

Blair faces bigger cuts if volume stays limp When a bloated William Blair & Co. recalled former managing partner Edgar D. Jannotta to active management in March, it said so in a three-sentence blurb issued to the press at the unfashionable hour of 6:29 p.m. The news, of course, did not get major play -- as the publicity-shy investment bank prefers.

Mr. Jannotta, Blair's 70-year-old majordomo, was given the new title of chairman and the novel challenge of divining what once came naturally to the 66-year-old LaSalle Street institution: printing money. In late April, just weeks into the uncompleted "strategic review," Blair for the first time executed what it said were across-the-board layoffs. Yet, amid a depressed market for its bread-and-butter...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.