What's up at Wachovia's investment banking unit?

Wachovia isn't exactly known as a Wall Street power, but it is a top-five player in certain areas, such as real estate, CMBS and CDO underwriting. It ranks high also in the underwriting league tables for many other categories. So you have to wonder what the bank's intention's are. Does it intend to move to compete with the likes of Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan? Wachovia seemed to take a few big steps in that direction in mid-2005 when it inked a deal to lease four floors in the Seagram Building on Park Avenue in New York and announced a string of high-profile hires from competitors like Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan. Now people are wondering--some sense that perhaps the bank is scaling back its ambitions. The scaling back has stoked talk about whether some high-profile hires will jump ship.

For more:
- here's an article from Investment Dealers' Digest (For FierceFinance readers)