Kaye/Bassman's Tim White Quoted in Bloomberg Businessweek Article, "A CEO's Big Stake In Saving Jeffries."

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Kaye/Bassman's Tim White Quoted in Bloomberg Businessweek Article, "A CEO's Big Stake In Saving Jeffries. "

Dallas, Texas, 12/5/2011:

In early summer, before layoffs began sweeping across Wall Street, billboard-sized photos of employees were plastered on the walls, pillars and elevator banks of Credit Suisse Group AG's offices in the United States and abroad.

The museum-quality prints, depicting workers from administrative assistants to senior executives, were emblazoned with motivational words like "Proactive" and "Partner." By mid-July, however, the photos disappeared and the Swiss banking giant began laying off 2,000 employees.

Security guards prevented employees from taking cell-phone pictures as the posters were stripped away, according to one employee who was present.

"It sent an entirely wrong message," said an employee, who was not authorized to speak publicly. "Management literally threw away that kind of money on something so trivial, while planning to cut thousands of jobs."

A bank spokeswoman declined to comment on the internal campaign or the employee's comments.

Credit Suisse's timing illustrates the unanticipated dangers of rampant job-cutting, which tend to run in cycles on Wall Street. Employee morale often plummets at a time when survivors are asked to pick up more responsibility and customer relations can suffer as service and relationships deteriorate.

What's more, layoffs inartfully constructed can come across to shareholders as Band-Aid solutions that at best temporarily cut expenses and at worst pare away reserves of talented people.

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"They finished cutting the fat and now they're into the muscle and bone," said Tim White, a managing partner who specializes in wealth management at the recruiting firm Kaye/Bassman International in Dallas.

"After MF Global filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 31, the spotlight shifted to Jefferies Group (JEF), another New York investment bank, as investors looked for other firms that might suffer losses on bonds of troubled European nations. When speculation arose that a liquidity crunch and bond losses would sink the company, Jefferies Chief Executive Officer Richard Handler rushed to counter it, branding those ideas “malicious lies” spread by people “whose interests are absolutely opposed to yours and ours,” in a letter to “Clients, Shareholders, Bondholders, Employees and Friends” posted on the company’s website on Nov. 21.

For Handler, 50, the 60 percent decline in Jefferies’s stock this year is more than just business—much of his personal wealth is tied up in the firm. He owns 6 percent of the company, a far bigger stake than CEOs at the largest Wall Street houses have in their companies. Also, Handler hasn’t had an employment contract in the 21 years he’s worked at the New York-based investment bank, meaning there’s no golden parachute for him if the firm goes under.

“He’s being a good CEO in staying in front of the story,” says Tim White, a managing partner at Dallas-based executive search firm Kaye/Bassman International. “When CEOs own a big piece of a company, then they’re going to act in the interest of shareholders more stridently than they might if they didn’t.”

Read the full story.

About Kaye/Bassman
Founded in 1981, Kaye/Bassman has grown to become the largest single-site executive search and recruitment firm in the United States with the simple mission of impacting companies and enhancing careers by providing the finest in professional, executive, technical and scientific search. Kaye/Bassman provides strategic recruiting and executive search solutions in over 20 industry practice areas including construction recruiting, healthcare recruiting, banking executive search, energy recruitment and many more. Next Level Recruiting Training, a recruiting training organization, Next Level Exchange, a recruiting training best practices information exchange, and Next Level Marketing Communications are also Kaye/Bassman companies.

For additional information or a sample copy, contact:
Darren McDougal
Kaye/Bassman International
(972) 931.5242
(972) 931.9683
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Source: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/a-ceos-big-stake-in-saving-jefferies-12012011.html

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Kaye/Bassman's Tim White Quoted in Bloomberg Businessweek Article, "A CEO's Big Stake In Saving Jeffries."

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