#finance

Reorg/layoffs happening in the Finance area.

while broader financials only down 6%. JPM down 7%. BAC only down 9%.

Citi is up 7%

Booooooo Charlie Scharf.

Show us the asset growth.

https://share.google/8GK5V3V463T8v147p

Heard there were a lot of layoffs in Tulsa. Anyone know which teams?

How many were let go at the basking ridge country club in finance ? Is there a 100 page PowerPoint for that ?

I get that being played off can be really stressful. More so now than ever companies are showing us how little we all matter. If you’re on the finance side of Fidelity, have you ever given thought to using your skills for yourself instead of a company? I did two years ago and have been doing well since. Just some food for thought

Fiserv (FISV): Historical Performance & The Last 6 Years
The Pre-2019 Track Record: Steady, Boring, Brilliant
Fiserv's reputation before 2019 was that of a predictable compounder — a back-office financial technology company delivering 4–5% organic revenue growth and 10–15% EPS growth annually for decades. Its 20-year total return is 462%, which is impressive precisely because it was built brick by brick, not in bursts. Think of it as a toll booth on the financial system — unglamorous, mission-critical, and quietly profitable. Banks couldn't easily rip out Fiserv's core processing systems, which meant sticky, recurring revenue. FinanceCharts

2019: The Big Bet — First Data Acquisition
The first major anomaly arrived in 2019 when Fiserv made a transformative, and very controversial, move. Fiserv agreed to acquire First Data Corporation in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $22 billion, receiving a fixed exchange ratio of 0.303 Fiserv shares per First Data share — a 29% premium at announcement. This essentially doubled Fiserv's size overnight, brought in the Clover point-of-sale platform, and shifted the company from a pure B2B infrastructure player into merchant-facing commerce territory. sec
The integration hangover was real. The deal loaded the company with debt, complicated its story for investors, and blurred what had been a very clean investment thesis. Even heading into 2019, pre-deal Fiserv expected only 4.5–5% internal revenue growth and 10–14% adjusted EPS growth — solid but modest. Post-deal, Wall Street had to recalibrate entirely. sec

2020–2022: Pandemic Noise, Integration Grind
The stock performed reasonably through COVID but never rerated meaningfully higher. The market was skeptical about whether the First Data integration was actually working. The total return for 2022 was -2.62% — essentially flat in a bad market year, reflecting investor uncertainty rather than confidence. Organic growth guidance was generally met, but the stock traded at a discount to peers. FinanceCharts

The Exchange Saga: Nasdaq → NYSE → Nasdaq
This is one of the stranger corporate optics stories in recent fintech history, and it happened in two acts:
Act 1 — June 2023: Going to NYSE
On June 6, 2023, Fiserv switched its stock listing from Nasdaq to the New York Stock Exchange and changed its ticker symbol from FISV to FI. CEO Frank Bisignano framed it as a prestige move — aligning with blue-chip peers, signaling fintech leadership. Bisignano said the decision was meant to signal the company's "leadership position in fintech." The stock was performing well at the time, and it looked like a victory lap. WikipediaFiserv, Inc.

Act 2 — November 2025: Back to Nasdaq
Then came the embarrassing reversal. On November 11, 2025, after over two years on the NYSE under the symbol FI, Fiserv switched its listing back to the Nasdaq Global Select Market and changed its ticker symbol back to FISV. The rationale was framed around closer alignment with Nasdaq's technology-focused investor base, but the timing was telling — it coincided almost exactly with the launch of the "One Fiserv" restructuring plan and a significant guidance cut. The return to FISV was, in many ways, a retreat to familiar territory at a moment of operational stress. WikipediaThe New York Report

2023–2024: The Peak and the Problem
2023 delivered a 31.43% total return, and 2024 was even stronger at 54.64%. The stock hit an all-time high. Fiserv's all-time high closing price was $237.79 on March 3, 2025. Clover was gaining momentum, and the market finally appeared to believe the post-First Data story. FinanceChartsMacroTrends
Then it fell apart quickly.

2025–2026: The Crash and the Reset
The total return for 2025 was -67.30% — a stunning collapse from that March peak. The causes were layered: guidance cuts, slowing organic growth, heavy investment spend, and macro uncertainty around consumer spending at small businesses. By Q3 2025, Fiserv had cut its organic revenue growth outlook to just 3.5–4% and adjusted EPS guidance to $8.50–$8.60 for the year — a dramatic reduction from earlier targets. Alongside those Q3 results, Fiserv launched the "One Fiserv" action plan to prioritize and enhance client focus. FinanceCharts + 2
As of late April 2026, the stock was around $62.65 — down roughly 74% from its all-time high. That's an extraordinary compression for a company with $21 billion in revenue and positive cash flow. MacroTrends

Can the Old Growth Track Record Return?
This is the heart of the debate, and the honest answer is: probably not in the same form, but the underlying business is arguably stronger — if execution improves.
Here's why the old model is unlikely to simply resume:
The pre-2019 Fiserv was a smaller, simpler machine. Squeezing 4–5% organic growth out of bank processing contracts was repeatable and predictable. Today's Fiserv is a merchant-facing platform business competing with Square, Toast, Stripe, and global acquirers — a fundamentally more volatile, competitive environment.
Here's the bull case for why growth could re-accelerate:
Clover's value-added services reached 27% of revenue in Q4 2025, up 5 points year-over-year, and management targets Clover GPV growth of 10–15% in 2026. The thesis is that Clover becomes what Square/Block tried to be — a full small business operating system, not just a payment terminal. Analysts point to Clover's 25% value-added services penetration with a path to 35–40%+ as a high-margin compounding engine the market may be underweighting. TIKRSimply Wall St
Financial Solutions core banking and debit processing carry near-irreplaceable switching costs, meaning client defection risk is structurally low. Simply Wall St
And the valuation math has shifted sharply. At roughly 10–11x 2026 adjusted EPS, the stock appears to price in essentially no recovery from the guided trough — any normalization toward higher adjusted margins in 2027–28 could create meaningful upside. The average analyst rating remains "Buy," with a 12-month price target around $127.53. Simply Wall StStockAnalysis

Bottom Line
The historical slow-and-steady compounder version of Fiserv is effectively gone — that company no longer exists in its original form after the First Data merger. What remains is a larger, messier, higher-potential but higher-risk entity trying to prove it can be both a reliable financial infrastructure provider and a growth platform business. The exchange round-trip (Nasdaq → NYSE → Nasdaq) is a reasonable metaphor for that identity confusion: it was a company that briefly thought it had arrived, then had to acknowledge it still had significant work to do.
Whether it can rerate from here depends heavily on Clover's execution, the success of "One Fiserv," and whether the payments sector recovers investor confidence. The fundamentals — cash flow, sticky clients, market position — are intact. The credibility with investors, after two years of guidance misses, is not.

I'm salary and normally my check clears in my bank by today but now it's magically not there after ODW went live for HR tools. Where the fu-k is my money?

i am 100% sure they want to phase out the rest of IT. i dont have insider info, it's just logical based on everything they've done so far... those folks are basically making themselves redundant at this point. i am also sure that finance, project teams are targets. mgmt too.

Obviously, I am not asking for binding financial advice, just curious, do you guys think there will be any stock market movement on this big Investor Day and if so, do we think it'll be up or down? Earnings calls are already regularly terrible and I'm not sure what an "investor day" would do differently since people already see through the smoke and mirrors of those.

https://www.cheapism.com/americas-worst-banks-according-to-customers/

#9

So what does this mean?

Anyone have any intel on when Houston Financial Crimes Investigations will be done? There are only a few of us here, and all of our managers are in a different location.

WARNING: this post is longer -and possibly more useful- than you may expect.

So, for those who still have meetings to attend, dashboards to ignore, or layoffs to survive, here is the TL;DR:

Xerox tolerated years of weak performance, endless restructuring, and a stock chart that looked like it fell down the stairs.

Then, in February, the company raised $450M through an IP-backed JV with TPG Credit, basically borrowing against part of the Xerox crown jewels.

A few weeks later, creditors were reportedly paying attention, and suddenly Steve B was out “effective immediately”.

Maybe it is all coincidence.

Or maybe poor performance made Steve vulnerable, but the IP deal made him disposable.

Now the full blown post to see if we’ve got this right.

For years, Xerox performance looked like death by a thousand paper cuts - not one clean fatal blow, just endless small wounds: shrinking revenue, restructuring fatigue, disappearing morale, executive-level delusion... until the patient was technically alive but nobody wanted to check the pulse too closely.

The stock was crushed. The core business kept shrinking. “Reinvention” became the corporate version of putting a fresh tie on a skeleton. Employees were asked to run, rush, sacrifice, and also restructure, realign, resize, reskill, re-something every quarter.

Meanwhile, the top of the house kept pumping out “Reinvention” slides like PowerPoint decks could pay down debt, grow revenue, and make the stock chart stop looking like a cliff.

And through all of that, Steve B stayed.

The board tolerated him. The company tolerated him. The market tolerated him less enthusiastically. Employees tolerated him because, well, employees are not usually invited to vote on the circus.

Then suddenly — bo-m.

March 30, 2026: Steve “steps down”.

Louie Pastor becomes CEO effective immediately. No long transition. No elegant handover. No “after a distinguished tenure, Steve will remain through year-end”. Just corporate-speak for: “Please exit through the back door”. Xerox also reaffirmed 2026 guidance in the same announcement, which makes the timing even more interesting.

If nothing was wrong, why the trapdoor?

Here is the part employees should pay attention to.

Six weeks earlier, on February 17, Xerox announced a $450 million IP joint venture with TPG Credit.

Translation for normal humans: Xerox took valuable intellectual property (the sort of assets that make Xerox, Xerox) and put them into a special financing structure to raise cash. Xerox said the deal was designed to strengthen the balance sheet and support liquidity, Reinvention, Lexmark integration, and possibly debt repayment.

In plain English: when a company starts pawning the crown jewels to keep the lights on, people are allowed to ask whether this is a clever financing move or the corporate equivalent of playing your last card.

Now, is that illegal?

Not necessarily. Smart lawyers get paid obscene amounts of money to make aggressive things look technically permissible. Xerox disclosed the deal. Serious advisers were involved. The paperwork was almost certainly blessed by lawyers billing at rates normally reserved for organ transplants and ransom negotiations.

But let’s not pretend this was a normal “strategic partnership”. This was not two companies joining hands to invent the future.

This was Xerox raising money against the crown jewels because liquidity matters when the "balance sheet" drops "balance" and starts looking like "sh*t".

And creditors noticed.

Octus reported that Xerox lenders were preparing a cooperation agreement following the “deal-away” transaction. Debtwire/Ion Analytics later reported that a lender group had signed a cooperation agreement after the $450 million TPG-led deal-away transaction.

That is finance-world language for: “The people who lent money are not calmly sipping herbal tea”.

Why would lenders care? Because if valuable assets are moved into a new structure where new money gets priority, existing creditors may worry that value has been shifted away from them.

Again: maybe legal. Maybe documented. Maybe clever. But definitely suspicious.

So now look at the sequence:

• February 17: Xerox announces $450 million IP-backed JV with TPG Credit.
• Late February: lenders reportedly start organizing after the transaction.
• March 30: Steve B is suddenly out, Louie Pastor is in, effective immediately.
• April 2: Xerox files Steve’s separation terms, including non-disparagement, non-compete, non-solicitation, cooperation obligations, continued vesting, and severance mechanics.

Nothing to see here, folks. Just your average corporate spring cleaning: monetize IP in February, creditors start circling, CEO disappears in March, and everyone smiles for the press release.

Maybe it is all coincidence.

Maybe Steve suddenly discovered a passion for gardening.

Maybe the board, after years of tolerating him as the corporate equivalent of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Chief Clown, finally woke up one Monday and said, “You know what? Leadership quality matters”.

Or maybe the IP deal changed the risk.

That is the real theory.

Poor performance made Steve vulnerable. But poor performance alone does not explain the suddenness. Xerox had been under pressure for years. The stock did not collapse overnight. The business did not become difficult in March. Employees did not suddenly notice the “Reinvention” machine was mostly powered by layoffs and vocabulary.

The more plausible question is this:

Did the board get scared?

Scared that the IP-backed financing was too aggressive?
Scared creditors might challenge it?
Scared the company had moved from “bad strategy” into “legal exposure”?
Scared that if this thing went sideways, directors might be asked what they knew, when they knew it, and why they approved it?

Boards can tolerate weak CEOs for a long time. They can tolerate bad morale. They can tolerate stock charts that look like ski slopes. They can tolerate employees screaming and leaving.

But creditor lawyers? That is different.

Once lenders start organizing, the room gets colder.

This does not prove Steve did anything illegal. It does not prove the board did anything illegal. It does not prove the TPG deal was invalid. But it does suggest Steve’s sudden exit may have had less to do with “fresh leadership” and more to do with risk containment.

In corporate terms, Louie Pastor may not just be the new CEO. He may be the adult brought in to stand next to the smoking g-n and say, “Everything is under control”.

The official story is simple: Steve stepped down, Louie stepped up, guidance was reaffirmed, please continue working harder with fewer people.

The unofficial employee version is more interesting:

Xerox may have borrowed against the crown jewels in February, creditors started paying attention, and by March the CEO was gone.

Maybe that is coincidence.

But at Xerox, there are no coincidences.

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/gm-expects-500-million-trump-195909092.html

Alphabet (GOOG) (5-Year Total Return): Approximately 194% to 199%. A $1,000 investment five years ago would be worth roughly $2,900–$3,000 today.
Wells Fargo (WFC) (5-Year Total Return): Approximately 121% to 236% based on recent, conflicting data reports. While WFC has seen a recent 40% rally in the past year, its total 5-year return has generally trailed the rapid growth of Alphabet.

As of April 2026, Oracle finalized a $16.3 billion financing deal for its massive data center campus in Saline Township, Michigan. This transaction is widely recognized as the largest single-facility technology debt package in history.

It's not a secret the OT is bleeding and drying out the divisions and there going to be another major layoff soon.

I'm hearing a lot of rumors about OT going to sell ADM bu heard SAP and others but is there any credibility to those rumors? is anyone going to buy ADM?
I guess the sale will be happening at the end of the faineance year (this June - start of July)

In a meeting about AI, (I am working on two Claude AI models now) it was slipped to myself and another by a market VP that they are looking deep into AI driven models to replaced human bodies. May is the month they will be collecting names of those that have not done all the AI training, looking to flat out replace them with AI driven models. The bottom line is this, on June 4th those that have just rejected AI and have not embraced AI will be removed from Verizon. Those that have embraced AI and have done all the training will still be employed on June 5th. That is the plan as it was told to me. On a side note our Claude code will replace many bodies in finance.

https://www.marketsgroup.org/news/verizon-to-move-pension-asset-management-to-goldman-sachs-ocio?fbclid=IwY2xjawRZliFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA80MDk5NjI2MjMwODU2MDkAAR6tW1eHusgv8sz-a_EIVp4-3Gr4_fpKJS5WnDXYY_YCVgII9d67nLy1BfY0TQ_aem_SCp5oOD-4eH3Wc8UasPgGw

When is finance team going to cleaned up with official span of controls in place. AVP reporting to AVPs, directors with 1 person team. Company wants to save money, but they cant save themselves.

Anyone hear anything about cuts in AML?

Why did WF pay?

Marvel was affected by Disney's latest round of company-wide layoffs. Staff reductions impacted both Marvel Entertainment and Marvel Studios. Approximately 8% of Marvel's workforce was reportedly let go. Cuts reached multiple departments including film, comics, and finance. Disney plans to cut up to 1,000 employees across the broader company.

Burbank, California

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2602916/marvel-hit-by-layoffs-as-disney-cuts-continue-across-company

Affecting ATS, Business, Ops

New Center of Excellence being created under Sabrina Sanders’ Org to standardize data collection

Up almost $10 from lows in less than a month. Is there a reason or just random?

I want to see what people on this board think about the impact of AI on our industry or specific roles/teams. I know that things are already happening and that there is no going back, it's not looking good. But I also thing that the impact is not going to be linear and that some parts will be affected more than others. What do you think and are you seeing it already. I am in Finance/planning so impacts have been limited so far but I can see situations where some of the low level work is completely done with AI.

Another earnings beat. Feeling grateful his morning, go USB!! 👍

Google AI question: Has Accenture taken jobs from investment firms other that IT?

Yes, Accenture has taken over significant non-IT operational and business functions from investment firms, asset managers, and capital markets entities. Through its "Managed Services" and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) arms, Accenture often assumes responsibility for middle- and back-office operations, strategy, and talent to cut costs and modernize processes.

Examples of non-IT job functions taken over by Accenture include:

Middle & Back Office Operations: Accenture manages end-to-end trading lifecycle operations, including trade processing, reconciliation, settlement, and clearing. 👀

Asset & Wealth Management Services: They provide operational support for portfolio management, investment stewardship, and client service teams. 👀

Finance & Risk Management: Accenture runs finance, risk management, and regulatory compliance reporting, taking over these functions to manage regulation and data.

Transaction Advisory & M&A: They provide strategy consulting, post-merger integration, and operational restructuring services, effectively taking over the planning and execution roles formerly held by internal teams.

Procurement: Accenture offers procurement outsourcing, managing vendor relationships and purchasing processes for financial institutions.

Human Resources/Talent: During acquisitions, Accenture often replaces internal HR and project management (PMO) staff with their own centralized global HR group.

How they do it:

Accenture typically acquires specialized consultancies (such as Altus Consulting for investment technology or SKS Group for banking) and then uses its "shared services" model to offshore or automate roles, which frequently results in the displacement of the client’s original staff.

Bunch of people in marketing laid off in last few days but it's been selective. Both the digital side and the financial side.

I was overpaid for one additional week on 4/6. I'm told they will not deduct this from a future check, and that I will eventually be sent a docusign document to repay the overpayment. They deducted an additional week of 401k deductions, too. I'm waiting to hear how they will address this since you can't just take money from this account without tax implications.

Is anyone else still having issues with payroll???

What is the whisper number for profit or loss at 3/31 ? The word on the street is that we lost $5M+ in Q1. Capital Management under performed with the bond portfolios & not enough rolled into MoA funds. flows out still pacing flows in. IT costs are balooning.

Full port in.

In the past 5 days FIS is down 5% and the Nasdaq is up 4.5%.

Remember when you could read the Company's Annual Report and know exactly how much the Company earned in the prior year?

They are laying off a bunch of of AR and AP people along with several people in accounting. Oddly a bunch of the same roles are now open as well. Not sure if they're planning to eventually outsource but the new leadership is also particularly obsessed with cutting costs even while the company is growing and doesn't care one bit about morale (or lack thereof) in the company. I think maybe a dozen people have been impacted.

Crocs is laying off MORE people in April of 2026, seemingly across the HR, Digital, Retail, Finance, IT, and Digital organizations, ahead of an outsourcing to Infosys.