Prudential Shuts Research and Trading Arm; Lays Off 30 Senior Analysts

Prudential Financial (PRU) Wednesday announced that it is shutting down its Prudential Equity Group division, which provided equity research, sales and trading. The move will result in the layoff of 420 people, including about 30 senior analysts.

The sole survivor from the company’s research business will be Ed Keon, who remains the firm’s chief investment strategist, according to Prudential spokeswoman Theresa Miller.

The departed will include quite a few analysts who made regular appearances in posts on Tech Trader Daily:

Inder Singh: networking equipment.

Jesse Tortora: PCs and disk drives.

Steven Barlow: newspapers and other media

Richard Klugman: telecom

Mark Lipacis: semiconductors

Katherine Styponias: cable and entertainment

John McPeake: Software

Bryan Keane: IT services.

So why is Prudential doing this?

Given the increasingly challenging and competitive nature of the equity research and institutional trading markets, it is clear that domestic and international scale is needed to succeed long-term for clients, employees and shareholders. Exiting the business is consistent with our market strategy to be in businesses where we have significant share.