Brian Moynihan: BofA Execs Might As Well Have The Phrase "Always Be Firing" Tattooed To Their Faces

It's basically the mantra of the company, so.

Author:
Bess Levin
Updated:
Jan 14, 2019
Original:
Oct 14, 2015

In case anyone needs a refresher on the bank's slogan. In related news, probably wise for existing Bank of America Merrill Lynch employees to gird their loins.

Brian Moynihan: We're down -- headcount continues to work its way down in our company. That's the expense mantra that we all talk about. But the reality is in a -- this quarter, we hired over 1,000 new students, new kids in from school. We added 1, 000 client-facing people. And we still were able to manage through hard (INAUDIBLE) work 1,500 net people out of the company. Bloomberg: You have been able to reduce expenses, to the point you just made, in part by reducing headcount dramatically over the space of the past five years. Yet, if I compare Bank of America to some of the other banks in your industry, the comparison could still be more favorable. Wells Fargo has an efficiency ratio, non-interest expenses as a percentage of revenue in the order of 57 percent. You guys are north of 60. Why can't yours be 57 percent? Moynihan: We're going to have -- there's going to be differences in business mixes, but ours should be better. Bloomberg: Better than it is today. Moynihan: Better than it is today. And that's going to come.

Bank of America CEO Moynihan Says Headcount Will Come Down [Bloomberg]

He's not sure who and he's not sure how (many), but apparently cuts are a comin' in 2016.

Would've been quite the gag but no, he was serious, in case there was a question in anyone's mind. Wall Street workers got another warning shot across the bow as the nation’s biggest banks gear up to report third-quarter results beginning today. Bank of America chief Brian Moynihan yesterday said that he planned to make good on a springtime plan to cut a whopping 30,000 workers from the sprawling Charlotte, NC-based bank’s work force. “As we continue to get through the mortgage issues at Countrywide, you’ll see the head count come down substantially,” Moynihan told Bloomberg Television. Moynihan has been struggling to put the lumbering bank on a diet and shed nonessential businesses and workers in an effort to reverse the course embarked upon by his predecessor, Ken Lewis. The former CEO hastily gobbled up mortgage giant Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch at the height of the financial crisis. In a plan dubbed “New BAC,” Moynihan’s pink-slip program will trim 10 percent from its work force of 275,000. [NYP]

The BofA chief is pretty much having the best day ever. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but his IT guys are THISCLOSE to registering www.brianmoynihnanDOESNTsuck.com before one of his fans can.

For once, it was a good day to be Brian Moynihan.

He doesn't have to be afraid anymore.

Remember Project New BAC, i.e. Bank of America's plan to transform itself from Ken Lewis's house of fun, where everyone went home happy but the concept of making money was less of a focus than keeping the good times coming, to an institution that did things like post profits? The bank has said previously that PNBAC "will result in $8 billion in annual savings by 2015—$5 billion from the first phase and $3 billion from a second phase" and while it stands by those figures and remains committed to cutting as many employees as it takes, some people would like them to be a bit snappier about it. Bank of America is accelerating a broad cost-cutting plan and has set a target of shedding 16,000 jobs by year's end—cuts that would see the company relinquish its title as U.S. banking's largest employer. The proposed year-end total of 260,000 would be the lowest count since 2008 and likely give Bank of America a smaller workforce than JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, or Wells Fargo...Chief Executive Brian Moynihan is trying to speed the company's transformation into a smaller and more efficient operation as he tries to persuade investors that expenses can be adjusted to compensate for revenue lost to new regulations, an uneven economy and shaky markets. Since becoming CEO in 2010, he has shifted away from a nationwide expansion strategy embraced by his predecessors Hugh L. McColl Jr. and Kenneth D. Lewis, and shed many of the businesses that he considers to be nonessential...Hitting the new staffing target would fulfill a year early Mr. Moynihan's pledge to slash the bank's workforce by approximately 30,000. "If they want to make any headway toward improving profitability," said Sterne Agee & Leach Inc. senior banking analyst Todd Hagerman, "they need to accelerate the timeline." Bank Of America Ramps Up Job Cuts [WSJ]

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