Some in the financial industry apparently smell opportunity in the latest round of mergers and blood-letting among top banks.

Referring to the Wells Fargo takeover of Wachovia as the WWF and placing Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis atop a bucking Merrill Lynch bull are just a couple of the attention-getting devices financial sector recruiting firm RJ & Makay uses in its latest promotional You Tube video.

Branching out from a previous video aimed at Merrill Lynch brokers, the new “Billion Dollar Video” (the company claims assets from advisers brought to them via these viral recruiting tools represent billions of dollars) targets all financial advisers but specifically appeals to those currently at Merrill Lynch and Wachovia.

Those brokers are grappling with with the question of whether to accept a retention/transition package, move to another firm or go independent. RJ & Mackay is clearly hoping they'll opt to walk and chose the firm to advise them on where to go next.

The just over four-minute short could help at least get their attention. It's an equal opportunity stick poker, targeting all the big hits of this financial season. JP Morgan Chase, Bear Stearns, Fannie and Freddie are all in there along with Lehman, Buffett, Goldman, AIG, Morgan Stanley, Bernanke, Paulson, the government bailout, executive greed, executive kool-aide dispensers and dealing with those pesky gnats, known as recruiters.

Watch here:

The New York Times’ Dealbook takes a look at some of Wall Street’s biggest movers and shakers as they have played musical chairs in the last few months:

MARK SHAFIR

Days after Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy, it emerged that Mr. Shafir, a global cohead of mergers and acquisitions, was leaving for Citigroup. Mr. Shafir stayed long enough to help sell Lehman’s United States capital-markets business to Barclays.

GEORGE H. YOUNG III

As head of Lehman’s communications banking group, Mr. Young, known as Woody, was that firm’s biggest rainmaker. After abruptly leaving Lehman in early 2007, he resurfaced last month at Merrill Lynch, just a week before Merrill agreed to be sold to Bank of America.

OLIVIER SARKOZY

A banker’s banker, Mr. Sarkozy, the halfbrother of the French president, brokered transactions as joint global head of UBS’s financial institutions group. In March, he became co-head of the global financial services group at Carlyle Group, the private equity giant.

PETER KRAUS

In his 22 years at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Kraus rose as high as co-head of its investment management division. But in May, he left to become head of strategy at Merrill Lynch, where another Goldman alum, John Thain, had recently taken the helm.

ERIN CALLAN

As chief financial officer at Lehman Brothers, she was one of Wall Street’s most powerful women. But she was demoted after her defense of the firm’s health failed to comfort skittish investors. In July, she jumped to Credit Suisse to run its global hedge fund business.

ALAN D. SCHWARTZ

Mr. Schwartz became chief executive at Bear Stearns a few months before its sale to JPMorgan Chase & Company. He decided in July to leave JPMorgan and has not announced his next move. He has reportedly talked to investment banks and private equity firms.

Photo: Children play musical chairs after taking part in a role play exercise during an induction course at Mexico City’s stock market July 15, 2005. Mexico City’s stock market holds an induction course for children who’s parents would like them to learn the basics of market capitalism during their summer holidays. REUTERS/Andrew Winning 

Wall Street Journal: China Investment Corp. Wants You
Job-seeking Wall Street types don’t have a lot of options. Cutbacks have eliminated tens of thousands of jobs. The number of investment banks narrows seemingly by the day. How about going to work for China? China Investment Corp., Beijing’s $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, is launching a new round of recruiting, aiming to fill more than 30 spots from macroeconomic research to stock picking.

The Guardian: Bidders raise hope for UK Lehman jobs
Administrators of Lehman Brothers were racing last night to save up to 3,000 City jobs by selling the UK operations to potential bidders believed to include Barclays and Japan’s Nomura.

New York Magazine: Trickle-Down New York
New York City’s proximity to extreme wealth—and the sense that New York has been fashioned by and for billionaires—is now at risk, along with the budgets of both the city and the state.

The Scotsman: HBoS chief pledges end staff uncertainty over jobs
HALIFAX Bank of Scotland boss Andy Hornby today pledged to staff that he will end the uncertainty on jobs as soon as he can.
In an open letter to staff, seen by the News, the Edinburgh-based firm’s chief executive admitted the merger with Lloyds TSB will “inevitably” lead to job cuts.

IT World: Financial industry turmoil: What’s in store for IT workers?
“There’s clearly going to be a reshuffling of the deck” inside IT departments, says Marc Lewis, CEO of executive recruiter Leadership Capital Group (LCG). So far, the reshuffling of the deck is looking more like a collapsing house of cards.

Information Week: Wall Street Crisis Won’t Impact IT Jobs… At First
The shock waves roiling the U.S. economy haven’t hit the IT job market yet, but high-tech specialists in demand today will still be in demand when the dust settles over the financial services markets, IT employment specialists maintain in an informal survey.

New York Times: New York’s Resilience Put to the Test
After the recession of 2002, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that New York City’s economy had diversified enough through the fostering of tourism, manufacturing and other businesses that the city had “reduced our dependency on the fortunes and failures of Wall Street.” Now, with the financial sector in turmoil after the failure of two of its biggest investment banks, the forced sale of another and the loss of thousands of its best-paying jobs, the mayor and his city face a true test of that claim.

Boston Herald: Hub job losses likely in Merrill takeover, Lehman bankruptcy
Boston workers were bracing yesterday for hundreds of job losses as the financial world reeled from the bankruptcy filing of Lehman Brothers and the planned $50 billion takeover of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America.

Washington Post: Financial World’s New Job Market Sinks Big Plans
Wall Street’s meltdown this week stirred such angst among University of Virginia business students that professor Susan Chaplinsky tried coaxing her wannabe Masters of the Universe to think positively.

Bloomberg: NYC Loses More Jobs, London Homes Drop as Banks Reel
The London-New York tug-of-war for bragging rights as the world’s preeminent financial center is now a race to the bottom. Six months after Bear Stearns Cos. was bailed out by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and a week after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy, both cities are bleeding.

The following are job changes within the financial industry for September 22, linked where possible to profiles on LinkedIn.

NOMURA HOLDINGS
The Japanese investment bank said James Lamb, Steven Ware, Kai Herbert, Sami Amara and Lofti Bensassi have joined its global foreign exchange sales and trading team in London. Herbert was previously from Bank of America, while the other four had worked at Bear Stearns.

GFI GROUP INC
The inter-dealer broker added five new hires in emerging markets credit default swaps in New York. All five join GFI from BGC Partners.

DAVIS POLK & WARDWELL
The law firm named former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioner Annette Nazareth a partner in its Washington, D.C. office. She will practice in the firm’s Financial Institutions Group.

RAINIER INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT INC
The investment firm hired Michael Emery as senior equity portfolio manager and analyst. He previously was vice president and small-cap portfolio manager with Provident Investment Counsel.

BROADPOINT CAPITAL INC
The broker-dealer subsidiary of Broadpoint Securities Group Inc named Clay Stephens as Managing Director and Roger Weilep as Vice President of Investment Grade Sales Department of Broadpoint’s Debt Capital Markets Division.
Stephens was previously with Bear Stearns and Weilep was with Deutsche Bank Securities.

COLLINS STEWART PLC
The independent investment banking group said Jamie Maddock has joined the company’s Oil & Gas equity research team. He was previously with Brewin Dolphin Investment Banking.

ARTEMIS
The investment management house appointed Dominic Herbert to its specialist fund management group as part of the institutional team. Previously he was CEO of Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s asset management joint venture with National Bank of Kuwait.

(Compiled by Amiteshwar Singh in Bangalore)