Deals & People February 11, 2009

Putnam Trims 260 Jobs

Putnam Investments plans to cut 260 jobs primarily in sales and operations.
Reported by

Reuters reported the staffing reduction, equal to 11% of Putnam’s workforce, is expected to bring the investment company’s new headcount to 2,140.

According to the news report, which quoted Putnam’s Head of Global Marketing and Products Jeffrey Carney, those affected will be notified Thursday. The company is a unit of Canadian insurer Great-West Lifeco Inc.

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Carney told Reuters that the firm will rely heavily on selling its funds through financial advisers, which means that it can eliminate some of its own sales staff.

The action is the latest to be initiated by Robert Reynolds, who became Putnam’s chief executive last summer and has restructured the Boston-based company (see “More Fidelity Execs Land at Putnam’).

Since taking over the top job at Putnam, Reynolds has reorganized the company’s mutual fund business and a number of prominent fund managers have left, including the company’s former head of investments Kevin Cronin (see “Putnam Announces Equity Restructuring’ and “Putnam Investment Chief Departs’).

Putnam managed $101 billion in assets at the end of January, roughly 63% than what it had in 2003 when the firm was caught up in an industrywide trading scandal, Reuters reported.

Products February 11, 2009

SSgA Unveils Credit Bond ETF

State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) announced that the SPDR Barclays Capital Intermediate Term Credit Bond ETF started trading on the NYSE Arca Wednesday.
Reported by

A news release said the new offering, designed to provide access to investment grade credit bonds, carries an annual expense ratio of 0.15%. The product seeks to track the price and yield performance of the Barclays Capital Intermediate Credit Index.

The index includes investment grade corporate and non-corporate credit bonds that are dollar denominated and have a remaining maturity of greater than or equal to one year and less than 10 years. As of December 31, the index included 2,512 issues with an average credit rating of A and dollar-weighted maturity of 5.2 years, the release said.

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“Developed in response to increasing demand from investors seeking access to intermediate credit securities, a segment of the fixed-income market that has historically offered higher yields than U.S. Treasuries, the SPDR Barclays Capital Intermediate Term Credit Bond ETF is a key addition to our growing family of fixed income SPDR ETFs,” said James Ross, senior managing director at State Street Global Advisors, in the release.

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