HSBC are expected to announce up to 20,000 job cuts next week, according to unidentified people “close to the matter” Sky News reports.
CEO Stuart Gulliver is due to disclose a target to shareholders on June 9th which will lay out a reduction in staff, expected to be between 10,000 and 20,000 people.
Bloomberg.com reports:
BYPASS THE CENSORS
Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox.
You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use
Heidi Ashley, a spokeswoman for HSBC in London, declined to comment on the report. The company employed almost 258,000 people at the end of last year.
Gulliver, 56, is striving to reduce costs and sell businesses to bolster earnings, while spending billions of dollars to boost internal compliance.
The job-cutting target will exclude the potential impact of selling businesses in Brazil and Turkey, as well as the possible separation of HSBC’s U.K. arm to meet a requirement to separate the consumer and investment banking businesses, Sky said.
The bank also is threatening to leave the U.K. over tax increases and the introduction of some of the toughest regulations in the world. Last year the British levy imposed on the firm’s global balance sheets cost HSBC 750 million pounds ($1.1 billion), the most among U.K. lenders.
It’s vital HSBC set a clear target for reducing expenses so that it can improve returns to shareholders, who’ve seen insufficient evidence of progress, James Chappell, an analyst at Berenberg Bank, wrote in a note to clients last month. Revenue growth is unlikely in a low interest rate environment where companies have taken on too much debt, he said.
