This is an updated and expanded version of our previous article on big banks' strategies. Some banks have reported since we last wrote, and we've added a few more in.

If you’re joining an investment bank later this year, either as a full time graduate hire or as an intern, you may be feeling a little concerned. As you probably know, the financial services industry globally has been making hundreds of thousands of redundancies and some investment banks appear to be suffering from unsustainable cost bases.

On the whole, investment banks don’t let go of their first year graduate and MBA hires - doing so is seen as counter-productive because it will put students off joining them next year. But anecdotally it does sometimes happen. The reality is that a degree of job insecurity and long hours are the flipside of the high pay on offer in investment banking.

For your information, therefore, we've amassed some information for you on how healthy banks are in terms of their costs, on their strategic priorities and job cuts. If you're joining as an intern or full time hire in 2012, it's probably too late for this information to make much difference - but at least you'll have an idea where things stand.

1.  Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Cost ratio in the investment bank: Across 2011 as a whole, costs in Bank of America’s banking and markets division (its investment bank) accounted for 77% of its revenues.

Redundancies: Redundancies are expected in the investment bank  as part of ‘Project Bac’. Altogether, this is expected to affect 30,000 people working for the bank, although only a small proportion will be in the investment bank. It may not be clear which investment banking staff are going until September 2012.

Strategic priorities: Bank ofAmerica had a few problems with its trading business last year, but these are apparently all now under control. It’s invested a lot in building up its European M&A business after senior staff left following the Merrill Lynch merger.

Other stuff you should know: Bank of America has been keen to grow its international presence outsideAmericain recent years. This may dissuade it from cutting too heavily inEurope when the Project Bac plan is finalised.

2. Barclays Capital

Cost ratio: In 2011 costs accounted for 71% of revenues at Barclays. This was considerably higher than the bank’s stated target of 65%.

Redundancies: Yes, BarCap is making redundancies - but not many. In August, it said it would let go of 400 people. Recruiters say BarCap has been letting people go in dribs and drabs, which means it doesn’t need to publicize its redundancies. Between December 2010 and December 2011, it cut 800 staff. Although additional cost reductions are generally considered necessary, Barclays hasn’t committed to a big redundancy programme.

Strategic priorities: BarCap has traditionally been strong in fixed income and has spent the past few years building its equities and M&A businesses. Its US M&A business has proven particularly strong. The bank appears committed to its student intake: across Barclays as a whole it hired 1,500 people in 2011, up 24% on 2010. 1,000 of these students went into Barclays Capital..

Other stuff you should know: BarCap’s equity business probably isn’t profitable yet, say analysts. It's unlikely to pull out altogether like RBS, but it may need to make some hard choices.

3. BNP Paribas

Cost ratio in the corporate and investment bank:The cost income ratio for BNP Paribas’ corporate and investment bank was 63% in 2011. This was good compared to other investment banks, but bad compared to BNP historically – in 2010 it was 54%.

Redundancies: Last November, BNP announced it was cutting 1,396 jobs from its investment bank.

Strategic priorities: BNP has outlined the areas it intends to cut people from. Most of its cuts are in structured finance (eg. Credit derivatives), support functions (eg operations), and other derivatives. It’s making a lot more redundancies abroad than in Paris and isn’t making hardly anyone redundant in M&A. When it announced its full year results February, it said it still had 60% of its redundancies to implement.

Other stuff you should know: As with SocGen, BNP’s future will be affected by the French political situation. President Sarkozy has said he wants to implement a transaction tax in Paris (unilaterally if necessary), which could lead French banks to shift jobs to London. Equally, socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande has threatened new bank taxes if he’s elected this summer. This could lead to French banks cutting their investment banking arms further.

4. Credit Suisse

Cost ratio in the investment bank: Credit Suisse seriously needs to cut its costs. For the full year of 2011, its cost income ratio was 98.6%.

Redundancies: Yes. Credit Suisse announced 2,000 redundancies last July and another 1,500 in November. Anecdotally, it’s let go of a lot of senior staff in its London fixed income trading business. The bank is in the middle of a CFH2bn cost cutting programme. CHF1.2bn has been cut already, with CHF1bn of that being cut from the investment bank.

Strategic priorities: As Credit Suisse cuts costs, it has specifically stated that it’s getting rid of expensive senior staff and promoting less expensive junior ones. This could be good for graduate hires.

It’s also planning to invest and grow, meaning some business areas will be better to join as a graduate than others. Growth areas include: Foreign exchange, global rates (including electronic trading), commodities, prime services, simple derivatives trading on exchanges and sold to corporate clients, equity underwriting (ECM). By comparison, Credit Suisse wants to ‘downscale’ in commercial mortgaged backed securities and some securitized products and to ‘improve its efficiency’ in M&A in Europe the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

Other stuff you should know: Credit Suisse has let it be known that it won’t automatically be increasing juniors’ pay each year any more . Credit Suisse is also in the process of combining its private banking and investment banking operations divisions, which may mean you join in a period of uncertainty if you're working in ops.

5. Citi

Cost ratio in the investment bank: 65% for full year 2011

Redundancies: Citigroup is making redundancies too. In December, the bank said it would be cutting 4,500 jobs in total. This may increase. Citi CFO John Gerspach made an ominous presentation in January in which he said the cost structure in the investment bank could not be justified by the current revenues.

Strategic priorities: Citi did a lot of hiring for its European investment bank last year, and this seemed to pay off in terms of revenues.  The bank is engaged in an ongoing ‘re-engineering’ programme to cut costs by at least $2bn annually, so you probably don’t want to be going into an operations job which could be automated. In the most recent quarter, it did particularly badly in equity derivatives.

6. Deutsche:

Cost ratio in the investment bank: Deutsche’s cost income ratio is also a lot higher now than it’s been historically. In 2011, 78% of revenues in the corporate banking and securities division went on costs; in 2010 on 69% did.

Redundancies: Deutsche said last year that it was making 500 redundancies, which is comparatively few compared to rivals. It hasn’t announced any plans to increase this number. In February, chief executive Anshu Jain said:  “I am not a big fan of building up and cutting back, so don’t expect anything dramatic in terms of headcount cuts, unlike the competition.

Strategic priorities: Last June, Deutsche made an investment bank-specific investor presentation. At that time, it said it wanted to hire people for: corporate finance, commodities, equities and ‘infrastructure’ (ie operations and technology). In February, Jain said the big priorities this year were building the equities business and Asia Pac.

Other stuff you should know: Deutsche CEO Anshu Jain says Deutsche is winning share from competitors. He also says plenty of people still want to work there.

7. Goldman Sachs

Cost ratio: 79% of Goldman’s revenues were absorbed by its costs in 2011. This was up from 67% in 2010.

Redundancies: Goldman Sachs cut 7% of its staff globally in 2011. It aims to cut $1.4bn of costs, but hasn’t committed to additional redundancies due to a lack of visibility on what the market will do next

Strategic priorities: Goldman Sachs has been talking about seizing market share while other banks are losing out.  Long term, it thinks there are opportunities to grow its market share in Europe and to continue expanding internationally. Short term, it may be constrained by concerns about costs.

Other stuff: It’s worth bearing in mind that Goldman’s chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, has been tipped to retire before the summer.

JPMorgan

Cost ratio: In 2011, 61% of the revenues in JPMorgan’s investment bank went on costs. This was down from 66% in 2010.

Redundancies: Like Deutsche and BarCap, JPMorgan doesn’t have a big redundancy programme. In 2011 it cut investment banking staff by a mere 1%.

Strategic priorities: JPMorgan is building both its private bank and its corporate bank. In December 2011, it provided a list of strategic priorities which included: emerging markets, commodities and prime brokerage. It also sees big growth coming from electronic trading.

Other stuff:  JPMorgan is widely seen as one of the banks that has done well in recent years. As this analysis shows, its investment banking business outperformed in almost every area during 2011.

Morgan Stanley

Cost ratio: In the institutional securities division (ie the investment bank) 73% of Morgan Stanley’s revenues went on costs in 2011. Morgan Stanley’s investment bank made a loss in the fourth quarter.

Redundancies: Morgan Stanley is making 1,600 redundancies globally.

Strategic priorities: Morgan Stanley has a very strong M&A business and has sought to rebuild its sales and trading business in recent years. Its equities business in particular performed well in 2011.

Nomura:

Cost ratio: Nomura hasn’t announced its full year results for 2011, but its investment banking division is loss making. In the first nine months of the year ending March 2012, its wholesale banking business made losses of Y50.1bn.

Redundancies: Yes, Nomura is trying to strip out $1.2bn of costs and is making thousands of redundancies – especially among the 4,400 or so people working for it in Europe. In February, however, it said these redundancies were 80% complete and there were no plans to make further cuts beyond the $1.2bn already announced.

Strategic priorities: Nomura has been very focused on building its investment bank in the US. It’s not entirely clear what the bank’s focus is in Europe, but it recently promoted a new head of fixed income who says he’s going for market share.

Other stuff: Nomura lost the head of its investment bank and the head of its markets division earlier this year. Their departure has been interpreted by some people as a sign that Nomura is not committed to its loss making international business and wants to return power to Japan. It’s also claimed, however, that the two bankers were let go because they had a risky plan to buy Italian government bonds.

UBS

Cost ratio: For full year 2011, costs accounted for a massive 96.8% of revenues at UBS’s investment bank, up from 81.7% in 2010. UBS suffered particularly from the losses of alleged rogue trader Kweku Adoboli. 

Redundancies: UBS in the process of a strategic makeover and is in the process of cutting staff. Perversely, however, headcount in its investment bank rose 2% in 2011. In total, it wants to cut 1,300 people by 2013, with most of the cuts likely to come in 2012.

Strategic priorities: UBS expanded its fixed income division dramatically in 2009 and 2010 and is now pulling back (again). UBS’s new strategic priorities are visible here. It’s pulling out of some business areas like proprietary trading and securitization, but is building in others like commodities and leveraged finance.

Other stuff: UBS has said that it no longer wants to be a world leading global investment bank. The investment bank is more to be seen as an addendum to the private bank.