Bear Stearns culls more jobs
Alex Hayek, a senior managing director in the telecoms team, was one of four investment bankers to leave on Thursday. He was the head of the "old guard", the original group of telecoms bankers at Bear Stearns before Michael Phair arrived with his highly paid unit of 11 from Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in May 2000.
Christopher Jaeger also left last week from the German telecoms and media investment banking division. He was a vice-president who joined only last year from Morgan Stanley. It is understood that another senior banker has left the M&A team.
Bear Stearns, which has been building a European-focused business for a relatively short period of time, had laid off about half of its investment bankers in Europe by the third quarter. The investment banking team has dropped from around 110 bankers at its peak in August 2001, to about 50 at the end of 2002.
Bear Stearns has cut jobs even in profitable areas. Three weeks ago, between 20 and 30 fixed-income sales and trading professionals were made redundant, leaving a team of between 150 and 200 in the overall fixed-income business.
Fixed income has been a profitable business for most banks this year due to falling interest rates, equity market volatility and the need for income pick-up on the buyside.
Bear Stearns has held on to a top 20 place in the international bond market, but only just. It was in 19th place at the end of last week, according to data from Dealogic.
