I heard the same thing from a couple of fairly high up types that there is a great deal of consolidation, with many sales, assistant and operations managers getting the boot or offered production roles.

Fact is, Smith Barney was one of the worst run firms on wall street at it's end - with stone age back office technology compared to anything but the banks. Way bloated with managers. Also heard (from a somewhat reliable source) that manager pay is getting hacked down ~40%.

Its a fact that management pay is getting killed. I spoke with a legacy SB manager last week who told me that is the case.

All the MS and SB branches are int he process of being complexed. As a result, the ops managers, and other back office folks are being asked to submit resumes and interview for their jobs. Obviously this points to a an awful lot of cuts coming. Also, it looks like the MS guys are getting preference on most situations. A lot of managers expect that at some point htere wont be many SB mgrs left standing, the whole thing is gonna be run by MS guys.