BarCap to cut hundreds of jobs in an effort to cut costs
BARCLAYS Capital is expected to announce hundreds of redundancies as early as today, affecting back office staff across the firm’s global operations.
It is understood the layoffs are intended to cut costs to compensate for a sharp fall in market activity in the second quarter.
The investment banking arm was responsible for around 87 per cent of Barclay’s total earnings last year, with Bob Diamond’s team raking in a £3.4bn quarterly pre-tax profit. However, certain measures of BarCap revenue were down 38 per cent in the last three months, prompting drastic action from the group.
Further, the wage bill for the group reached £5bn in the year, gaining £1bn in the last year that was mostly spent within BarCap as it expanded.
Diamond said after the company’s results announcement last week that BarCap’s total headcount will end up higher by the end of 2010.
BarCap declined to comment on the redundancies last night.