Citigroup Inc.’s head of Asia- Pacific sales trading, Richard Patterson, has left after more than five years as the New York-based bank starts cutting jobs in the region, two people familiar with the matter said.Patterson, who joined Citigroup in April 2003, left today as a managing director, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is still private. He could not be reached immediately on his mobile phone.
Citigroup Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit said this week the bank will eliminate 52,000 jobs over the next year as loan losses surge and the U.S. slides into recession. Asia- Pacific, home to the fastest-growing major economies in the world, has not escaped global headcount reductions as banks cut workers across the board to combat the financial crisis.
“You’re seeing the bulge-bracket banks looking at rationalizing their management,” said Andrew Sullivan, a sales trader at Mainfirst Securities Hong Kong Ltd. and previously head of Asian sales trading at Daiwa Securities SMBC Co. in Hong Kong. “Now, they’ve got to downsize to match the revenues that are in the market and other banks will be looking to make similar cuts.”
James Griffiths, a Hong Kong-based spokesman at Citigroup, declined to comment.
More Job Cuts
Patterson would be one of the most senior employees in Asia to leave after Citigroup announced the global job cuts this week. The firm is expected to start firing investment bankers in Asia in the next two days, the people said.
Banks and brokerages worldwide have announced more than 166,000 job cuts since the subprime mortgage market collapse last year sparked a credit crisis.
HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe’s largest bank by market value, cut 500 jobs in Asia this week, citing deteriorating economic conditions and a “cautious outlook.” Morgan Stanley last week announced plans to cut 10 percent of the workforce in its global institutional securities unit.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which converted from the biggest U.S. securities firm into a commercial bank, this month started to cut an estimated 3,200 jobs, or 10 percent of its workforce.
Citigroup’s stock is at its lowest price in more than a decade on concern a global recession may extend the bank’s losing streak. The shares have slumped 72 percent this year.
Source : Bloomberg
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession]
2 comments:
Citigroup is in difficulty when its share price drop below $5. They are now looking for a merger partner. If that goes thru, we can expect more job cuts following the post-merger restructuring.
So far, Malaysian banks seem pretty sheltered from all these retrenchments. But I expect this to happen next year...
Next year is just a month away, we figure that everyone just better be prepared and ready for what's to come in the coming months.
Its a ripple effect and Malaysia is just further away from where the stone fell.
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