Two thirds of staff to go at Babcock & Brown

Australian infrastructure investor Babcock & Brown has set a new record for staff cuts at a going concern. It announced this morning that it plans to cut headcount by almost two thirds between now and 2010.

Babcock's stock has plummeted 99% this year, and today's announcement followed a warning that it was in danger of breaching its covenants and needed to reduce costs by $150m in order to halve corporate debt.

Following the earlier collapse of Australian infrastructure company Allco Finance Group, the earthquake at Babcock is liable to cause a few tremors at Macquarie, which leads the Australian infrastructure herd. Earlier this week, Macquarie (AKA the millionaires' factory) announced a 43% reduction in first-half profits.

For the moment, however, Macquarie at least appears to be hiring - staff numbers were up by 791 in the first half of this financial year. Pay per head for the first six months of this year was, however, down at AU$79k, compared to AU$117k for the same period of 2007. Millionaires are likely to be few and far between this year.