Friday, January 16, 2009

Wachovia employees whacked by Wells Fargo

Corporate retribution is an understatement. Changing firms is a fact of life in the brokerage industry. Firms offer their competitors' brokers bonuses as forgivable loans to leave, and they all do it. Now Wells Fargo has apparently decided to punish brokers and staff who left Wells Fargo to go to Wachovia.

Wells Fargo got the opportunity to smack its former employees when it purchased Wachovia. And retribution is tough - Wells fargo promptly fired 175 Wachovia employees who had previously left Wells Fargo to go to Wachovia.

They even have a list, called the "conflict employee summary" of the emploess when they wanted to can. And Investmentnews reports that brokers are among those being fired.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the U-5 and the forgivable loan repayments. I hope Wells Fargo has a decent reserve for litigation costs, but retribution can be costly.