Layoffs Watch '15: New Barclays CEO Mulling Over Giving Additional 20% Of Investment Bank The Heave-Ho

He's also extending a hiring freeze from now until ???, which makes sense.
Author:
Updated:
Original:

Maybe consider holding off on shooting the British bank a résumé, just for the time being. And no hot air balloon rides for the current staff.

The CEO said he will keep the ban in place “for a long time” at a townhall meeting in London on Dec. 2, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the meeting was private. A previous freeze, implemented by Chairman John McFarlane in September, was due to be reviewed in January...Staley, who took charge on Dec. 1, is considering whether to cut an additional 20 percent of staff at the investment bank, the lender’s most expensive and least profitable division, people familiar said last week. The heaviest losses will come in Asia and the global cash equities business, which are not competitive enough, according to the people, as the company focuses on businesses in the U.K. and the U.S.

Barclays CEO Staley Said to Freeze Hiring 'for a Long Time' [Bloomberg]

Related

News

Layoffs Watch '12: Barclays

Cuts are said to have gone down with more a-comin'. Barclays PLC is cutting about 50 employees from its equities business, the latest effort by the British bank to reduce costs at its investment-banking arm. A week ago, the U.K. lender announced internally that about 10% of the jobs at its equities business across Europe, Africa and the Middle East would be lost, a person familiar with the matter said Friday. During the first half of the year, Barclays's equities and prime services business, which employs about 500 people, saw revenue fall 12% on the year to £973 million ($1.57 billion). The business has suffered as market volumes have dried up in recent quarters...The work-force reduction could be a taste of things to come for Barclays's investment bank. At the beginning of 2009, former Barclays Chief Executive Bob Diamond hired more than 400 bankers, mainly in equities and research, as part of a drive to turn the predominately debt-focused bank into a multi-asset powerhouse. Following Mr. Diamond's departure in the wake of a rate-fixing probe, new CEO Antony Jenkins has started a review of the bank's businesses to assess their profitability and whether and how they affect the lender's reputation. This, combined with tougher regulatory requirements, is expected to result in Barclays shrinking its investment bank, analysts say. Barclays To Cut 50 Equities Jobs [WSJ]