Investment Managers Mull UK Job Cuts

Anticipating the credit crunch will cut into their revenue, fund managers including Fidelity International are said to be quietly weighing job reductions in the UK.

Fidelity says it's looking "across the business" at reducing costs through means that include eliminating jobs via either layoff or attrition, Financial News reports. Any job cuts "are unlikely to affect Fidelity's front-line fund management team," the newspaper says, citing unnamed sources close to the company.

The story also notes UK fund manager Henderson Global Investors expects to save 20 million ($39.3 million at Tuesday's exchange rate) this year through staff reductions. "There is not a fund manager in the City (of London) that is not doing this right now," Henderson Chief Executive Roger Yates told Financial News.

Customers withdrew 977 million ($1.9 billion) from Fidelity's UK funds in the fourth quarter of 2007. In the first two months of this year, all property and equity fund managers in the UK suffered net withdrawals of 1.7 billion ($3.3 billion).