Industry

The financial turmoil in the markets is far from over, and mutual fund firms can expect assets to continue to decline further, investors to remain skittish, and regulators to be reactive well into 2009, experts say.

OppenheimerFunds has appointed William F. Glavin, Jr. as CEO, effective January 1. Current Chairman and CEO John V. Murphy will remain the chairman and continue to serve as president and a director/trustee of the funds until his retirement at the end of next year.

MFS told 90 people, 5% of its workforce of 1,800, they were being laid off on Thursday, Investment News reports.

With sales plummeting in the U.K., Fidelity International is preparing to lay off 300 people, or 14% of its staff of 2,100, The Evening Standard reports.

With investment banking and trading being two of the areas hardest hit within the 160,000 financial services jobs lost around the world, many analysts will find themselves unemployed as well, the International Herald Tribune reports.

Reserve Funds has hired Joseph T. Monagle, Jr. to help the firm sell positions in a difficult debt and credit market.

Because it takes about six months to a year for executive search firms to catch up with the general labor market, a number of recruiters that specialize in financial services are likely to cut their staffs early next year, Dow Jones reports.

BlackRock will be eliminating a number of positions among its 5,500 ranks, Bloomberg reports, quoting an internal memo it obtained. It will be the first time in its 20 years of existence that it has eliminated jobs.

Stressing that the reorganization is not motivated by the financial crisis but a strong desire to improve accountability and, with that, performance, Putnam Chief Executive Officer Robert Reynolds announced Monday that the firm is doing away with team-managed equity mutual funds. Instead, those funds will be run by single portfolio managers.

Upon laying off 1,300 people last week, Fidelity Investments indicated that another 1,700 will lose their jobs in the first quarter of 2009, bringing the tally of layoffs to 3,000, or 7% of the workforce.