In 1996, I switched jobs within Smith Barney from investment banking to equity research; within weeks Smith Barney bought Salomon Brothers. That should have been a good thing, except that I had been hired to start coverage of the Cement and Construction sector in Latin America, and Salomon Brothers already had an Institutional Investor-ranked analyst in that area. With several of my colleagues in a similar situation, weeks of speculation ensued as to which analysts were in and which would get the boot. Senior management attempted to mollify us by rattling off the reasons why this acquisition made sense, but for those of us wondering if we had a job, their strategic vision was irrelevant.