Reuters names LaCapra team leader for financial companies

Dan Wilchins, editor in charge of banking and insurance companies at Reuters, issued the following staff promotion:

Pleased to announce that Lauren LaCapra has been named the team leader for financial companies. In her new role, she will look at the financial sector more broadly, working with other beat reporters to break news about commercial banks and investment banks. She will continue to cover Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, but will also generate story ideas, edit, and help us prioritize coverage.

In her short time at Reuters, Lauren has broken some of the biggest Wall Street stories on pay, mergers, and regulatory issues. She was first to write about layoffs at Goldman in each of the last three years. She did great work with the wealth management team on Morgan Stanley’s inability to retain brokers thanks to its lousy systems and unwillingness to lend.  Her pieces routinely have executives talking and competitors grumbling.

LaCapra has been covering finance since 2008. She joined Reuters as Wall Street correspondent from TheStreet.com in March 2011, having previously worked at the Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal. She got into journalism partly as a result of a New York Times scholarship that got her through college. Even though she covers the most highly leveraged industry in the world, she is proud to say she has never had any kind of outstanding loan in her life, much less a CDO-squared. LaCapra lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and has two dogs, Captain and Tallulah.

I am sad to report that Rick Rothacker, who has been rocking the Bank of America and Wells Fargo beat in Charlotte since October 2011, will be returning to the Charlotte Observer, where he will be an investigative reporter.  We will miss him, but please do wish him luck in his new position if you have not already.

Thank you, and please continue to break news.