Industry

As the shock of the turmoil in the financial services industry continues its ripple effect, businesses and governments outside New York and Boston are bracing for lower tax rolls as a direct result of tax cuts.

Legg Mason Taps Odenath To Head Up the Americas

John Thain, chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch, said the reaction of his firm’s “thundering herd” of more than 16,000 financial advisers to the Bank of America sale has been almost 100% positive.

Over the next several months, Curian Capital plans to hire 21 additional salespeople: 10 external wholesalers, 10 internal wholesalers and a divisional vice president overseeing them. “The expansion of our sales team will allow us to keep pace with the number of new advisory relationships that Curian has entered into this year, and support the robust growth of the managed accounts industry as a whole,” said Michael Bell, president and chief executive officer of Curian. “We are seeing an increased demand for dedicated business consulting and practice management support, particularly as more financial professionals transition to advisory business,” Bell continued. “We will continue to expand our distribution force in order to satisfy these demands and maintain a high level of personal service for our business partners.”

Mark Schonfeld, the high-profile New York regional director of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has left the SEC after 12 years of service to join Gibson Dunn as co-chair of the securities enforcement practice group. In this position, he will also work closely with the crisis management and white collar defense and investigations groups.

The top enforcement attorney at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mark Schonfeld, is reportedly leaving next month to join a private law firm.

Financial services, insurance, and real estate businesses’ hiring plans for the fourth quarter are the weakest they have been in 16 years, as a result of a contracting banking sector and the slumping housing market, a survey by Manpower found.

With Japanese households worth more than $14 trillion, and half of that in cash or postal accounts, Manulife Financial Corp. has decided to enter the nation’s mutual fund market.

Anxious to do business in the world’s third-largest economy, where the population is aging, The Hartford is expanding into Germany.

Julian Pick, co-manager of two Janus Group international mutual funds, is leaving at the end of the month, Rocky Mountain News reports.