Lunchtime Links: Amazingly, an investment bank has ruled out redundancies
BNP Paribas also reported its second quarter results this morning. They weren't fantastic - year-on-year its corporate and investment bank revenues were down a mere 2.6% on the first half of 2010, but compared to Q1, second quarter revenues slipped by 23%.
In line with most other investment banks, fixed income sales and trading revenues dropped (by a relatively resilient 12.2% year-on-year), but again compared to the strong first quarter, this is a 32% decline.
Should employees of the French bank therefore be bracing themselves for an inevitable "cost efficiency" announcement? Well, no, actually.
In an interview with Reuters, BNP Paribas' chief executive Baudouin Prot said that costs at the bank were under control, and that its prudence when recruiting during the last year or so has meant redundancies are unnecessary.
"We didn't go for the go-go hires as peers did in the last few quarters. If we didn't go for the go we didn't have to go for the stop," he said.
Last week, the French bank also indicated it was expanding its prime broking business.
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HSBC is HIRING 15,000 people in emerging markets by 2013 (AFP)
Fidessa curbs hiring spree after "unexpectedly low volume of trading" (Financial Times)
Credit Suisse has hired a senior FIG banker in New York (Bloomberg)
Five investment banks have bought 'sleeping tubes' for their employees City AM)
Naked artists invade Wall Street (Gothamist)
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