Most Drexel Workers Will Officially Lose Jobs Today

A majority of Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc.’s 5,300 employees will officially lose their jobs today, including most of the 400 staff members in the firm’s junk bond headquarters in Beverly Hills.

The terminations come in the wake of a bankruptcy filing Tuesday by Drexel’s parent holding company. Drexel spokesman Steven Anreder declined to disclose the exact number of people to be let go today. But he said it amounted to several thousand, including all but a small number of employees in Beverly Hills.

“You can safely say that the great bulk of them will be terminated tomorrow,” Anreder said Thursday.

Employees continued to search for jobs, and Drexel’s management on Thursday persisted in efforts to place whole departments at other firms. Drexel officials remained hopeful that another Wall Street firm would pick up its entire stock research and trading unit, which includes 600 employees. But in general, the firm appeared to be having little success in moving whole units.

Successful traders and other star employees are expected to be snapped up by other firms. But securities industry analysts expect that, overall, only a small percentage of Drexel’s employees will readily find jobs in the industry, which has been battered by a prolonged downturn in several key areas of business, including mergers and acquisitions and retail stock brokerage.

Anreder said employees received paychecks on Thursday. He said Drexel will soon announce details of severence pay, adding that those who are let go today will still be allowed access to Drexel’s offices and phones to look for jobs.

Anreder said he didn’t know when the Beverly Hills office would actually be closed. Drexel failed in efforts to find a single buyer for its huge junk bond portfolio, which was valued at $1 billion or more. So the firm continued Thursday to sell off its holdings of high-yield, high-risk securities piecemeal, when buyers could be found at acceptable prices.