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Bloomberg
Citigroup Inc. and Barclays Plc started eliminating jobs in their investment-banking operations, joining other major banks in responding to plunging revenue from the business.
Dozens of positions at New York-based Citigroup were cut this week, while reductions expected to eventually total about 200 have begun at London-based Barclays.
US banks have been hurt by the dramatic slowdown in investment banking as the volatility that spurred gains for trading weighed on capital markets and asset management. Third-quarter investment-banking fees plummeted 64% at Citigroup, and were down 45% at Barclays.
Wall Street banks also regularly cull underperformers ahead of the annual bonus season that comes at the start of the year. Still, the move marks a reversal for Citigroup, which has been adding talent as it seeks to boost its position in certain sectors, including health care and technology.
Morgan Stanley is considering eliminating about 50 investment-banking jobs in the Asia-Pacific region, people familiar with the matter said earlier this month.
That followed a similar move in September by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which is embarking on its biggest round of job cuts since the start of the pandemic.
Goldman said in July that it planned to slow hiring and reinstate annual performance reviews in an effort to rein in expenses in what it called a “challenging operating environment.â€
Grim news on the job front follows two years of soaring profits and bonuses fueled in part by huge government stimulus programs aimed at keeping the economy from sliding into a recession during the pandemic. The biggest US banks kept adding to their workforces in the third quarter.
It isn’t just in investment banking. Wells Fargo & Co.’s home-lending unit has laid off hundreds of people in the past few months in cities such as Charlotte, Des Moines and Minneapolis. HSBC Holdings Plc is preparing to cut as many as 230 jobs in France next year, primarily at a unit serving small French companies.