Morning Coffee: More RBS Cuts Looming
Royal Bank of Scotland will cut another 300 i-banking jobs by the fourth quarter of next year, upping its expected workforce reductions in the division to 3,800.
Roughly 3,000 of those cuts will have been made by the end of this year, with an additional 800 coming during 2013, John Hourican, the head of RBS's markets and international banking business, told analysts on Monday.
The announcement is the latest in a series of cost-cutting moves by the Scottish bank, which has slashed several of its bloated business units, including its cash equities, corporate broking, and equity capital markets businesses, to become more lean and efficient. RBS has now cut roughly 34,000 jobs since Chief Executive Stephen Hester took over in 2008 after the firm was bailed out by the state, according to Bloomberg.
The move is yet another indictment on the global i-banking market. Large banks like UBS, Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have lost significant assets over the last year and trimmed i-banking payroll by between 1% and 10%.
Eliminating Redundancies (Reuters)
Julius Baer, which purchased Bank of America Merrill Lynch's overseas wealth management business in August, reportedly plans to cut the unit by between 30% and 40%. As many as 880 jobs may be on the chopping block.
Changing of the Guard (Reuters)
Andrea Orcel, the new investment banking head at UBS, has recruited several former colleagues to join him at the Swiss bank, leaving longtime employees fearing that their jobs may be at risk.
Setting Precedents (eFinancialCareers)
Goldman Sachs is going through an evolution of sorts, transforming the organization through a rash of personnel moves designed to better prepare the firm for the new Wall Street. Here’s what their recent moves can tell us about future workforce trends in the banking world.
In terms of pure employment numbers, Wall Street is still dominated by men. This may be due to culturally-constructed systems of powers, says one NYU scholar.
E&Y’s New Infrastructure Unit (Financial News)
Accounting firm Ernst & Young is building a 30-person market infrastructure team to be run by former Euroclear head Martin Watkins. It’s unclear how many of the hires have already been made.
Fundraising Uptick (Financial News)
Nearly 80 global private equity firms are expected to begin raising capital for new funds in the coming months, marking the biggest fundraising period of the year.
Buzz Around the Office
Workers at Foxconn, a Taiwanese iPhone assembly plant, broke out into a four-hour, 2,000-person brawl that was only broken up after 5,000 police officers swarmed the facility.
List of the Day: Phone Interviews
Phone screens are simply avenues to get to the next step in the interview process. But if you make critical mistakes, you’ll never have the chance to win over the hiring manager in person. Here’s how to ace a phone interview.
- Treat it as a formal interview. Avoid screaming kids, barking dogs and other distractions.
- Have your resume and the job description in front of you.
- Know the answers to logistical questions, such as your availability for an in-person interview.
