Friday's Headlines: Wall Street Recruits U.S. War Veterans as Financial Jobs Decline

Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are being recruited by banks such as Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as Wall Street jobs wane, according to an article in Bloomberg

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The New York-based banks joined Credit Suisse Group AG, Bank of America Corp. and Deutsche Bank AG at a job fair hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for service personnel aboard the USS Intrepid, a museum in the Hudson River.

"We're looking for the right talent at the right time," Suni Harford, Citigroup's head of markets for North America, said while gripping a stack of resumes collected at the fair.

The veterans are aiming to work in an industry where jobs fell in 2010 for a fourth straight year to an average 7.63 million, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, or 8.4 percent below a 2006 peak. For veterans, unemployment rose to 12.1 percent in May from 10.6 percent a year ago. President Barack Obama said on June 22 he will withdraw 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by September 2012.

The veterans said they hoped they had skills to fit a job at one of the more than 100 employers recruiting.

Other news:

JPMorgan and Credit Suisse top Greenwich Associate's ranking of U.S. equity brokers. [BusinessWeek]

Swedish private equity firm EQT agreed to sell Securitas Direct to Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman for $3.4 billion. [DealBook]

Malayan Bank and CIMB are reported to have dropped their bid for the rival Malaysian lender RHB Capital. [Bloomberg]

Indian Icici Bank has produced seven of the country's 14 top female financial professionals. [BusinessWeek]

Nearly 30 public U.S. companies don't have women on their boards or among their highest-paid executives. [BusinessWeek]

Hedge fund investors are turning away from global macro funds towards boutique competitors. [Reuters]

Private equity has almost recovered, though most of those gains are still on paper. [Forbes]

Apollo Global Management is the final bidder for Germany's WestLB's real estate finance unit. [Bloomberg]

J.P. Morgan Chase abandoned more than 1,000 suits that sought to recover credit-card loans. [WSJ]

After the massive data breach last month, Citigroup did not offer its hacked clients the same degree of identity-theft protection that many other companies provide. [Reuters]