Dozens of bankers, traders and support staff who survived the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. will face layoffs in the latest round of Wall Street cutbacks.
Barclays BARC.LN +0.07% PLC plans to cut 275 New York employees in three locations around the city, including the former Lehman Brothers headquarters at 745 Seventh Ave. in Midtown Manhattan, the company said in a filing Wednesday with the New York State Labor Department. The company wouldn't say how many cuts will come at each building.
The cuts are part of a broad strategic overhaul set to be presented by Chief Executive Antony Jenkins next Tuesday. The Wall Street Journal has reported the firm could cut as many as 2,000 jobs in its investment bank.
Barclays had 23,300 employees in its investment bank as of June 30. The firm doesn't disclose its headcount for the Americas.
Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008 in the biggest-ever U.S. bankruptcy filing, leaving thousands of workers unemployed. Barclays later acquired the company's U.S. investment-banking and capital-markets operations.
Barclays, like its competitors, has been struggling with clients' diminished appetite for dealmaking and weaker trading volume. The company also has been damaged by scandals including a settlement of a rate-rigging probe that has now netted two other giant global banks.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323452204578288332951705680.html?mod=WSJ_Markets_LEFTTopStories
2 comments:
I was a little surprised by this article. We pretty clearly seem to be coming out of the recession and commercial lending as well as investment banking activities seem to be on the rise so I am a bit confused as to why Barclays plans to cut their headcount at this point. I think the LIBOR rate repercussions may be the real reason the firm is having to do so and not the current business climate.
I agree with Viny on this in that there has to be another reason for such high cutbacks coming at this point. Whether there is internal pressure, they are making preparations for economic events to come, or there is some third variable is yet to be seen. Hopefully some of this will be cleared up in the presentation by Jenkins.
Post a Comment