Management Shuffle at Top of Shearson

Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc. announced today a corporate realignment and management reshuffle that included the reassignment of company president Jeffrey B. Lane to a lesser position.

The move reflected the continuing turmoil at the nation’s second-largest investment firm, which over the last month has announced hundreds of layoffs and a sharp reduction in stockbroker commissions.

Peter A. Cohen, Shearson’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement today that the company is dividing its businesses into four groups: Capital Markets, Investment and Merchant Banking, Private Client and Subsidiary Activities.

Other big Wall Street firms have made similar realignments in recent years.

Lane was reassigned to head the Subsidiary Activities Group, which will include Shearson’s money management businesses including its Boston Co. division, Cohen said.

Robert S. Fuld Jr., who currently heads Shearson’s taxable fixed-income division, was seen as replacing Lane as Cohen’s second-in-command, although Fuld was not given the title of Shearson’s president.

Fuld was named president of Shearson’s Capital Markets Group, which will include the company’s worldwide capital markets activities. He also will oversee Shearson’s administrative side.