ABN Amro cuts 30 from US fixed income

ABN Amro has laid off 30 fixed-income staff in the US as part of a wider reorganisation that will see 110 jobs go across the US institutional business and 1,350 jobs cut worldwide.

The latest layoffs centre on the firm's fixed-income research business, according to sources close to the bank. A spokesman said: 'We announced changes to our wholesale clients business in December last year and they are being implemented.'

The move is the latest effort by ABN Amro to scale back its non-core activities in the US.

Last year, the firm sold its US professional brokerage business to Merrill Lynch. In late 2003, it sold its US prime brokerage business to UBS.

Its US mortgage business was the only area of the bank to report a decline in revenues last year.

The wholesale clients business, as ABN Amro terms its institutional division, is undergoing a restructuring designed to allow bankers more time to focus on clients and less on administration.

It has seen the institutional business move from operating through seven business units to three: global markets, global clients and wholesale client services.

The bulk of the reductions will be in the Middle East, Africa and Europe, and in the Netherlands and the UK in particular.