Don't know much about what has been going on there. I know that they cut back big time in the past year. In Boca, they went from what were essentially 3 offices (2 on one floor in the same building, but 2 managers and a second separate location) to one office. I am having lunch with a friend who is still working there tomorrow. If I learn anything significant, I will be happy to share the info.
They never had customers as far as I know. When I was there, they tried for a short time to have traders put up some of their own money in exchange for a higher payout. None of the traders that I know of did not trade poorly with that arrangement. I think they just traded "scared". The experiment was short lived. After that, EVERYONE traded the firms money exclusively.
If you had your personal account there, which some traders did, you could not trade out of a winning position in less than 5 days. And you could not make a trade of less than 500 shares. Needless to say, I kept my personal account at Merrill, and so did everyone else (not necessarily Merrill, but not at Schonfeld). The reason for this restriction was Schonfeld did not want traders watching their own accounts, and also, it was supposed to discourage "frontrunning".
Peace,
rs7