Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc may cut more than two thirds of its investment-bank jobs as part of a plan to shrink the securities unit and focus on the UK consumer market, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
Under an overhaul, announced last week, RBS may eliminate as many as 14,000 jobs at the investment bank, said the person who asked not to be named because the details are private, Bloomberg reported.
The Edinburgh-based firm’s corporate and institutional bank, housing most of the securities activities, employs 16,000 to 18,000 people, out of a workforce of more than 108,000. RBS hasn’t finalized the plans on job cuts, the person said.
Chief Executive Officer Ross McEwan, 57, on Feb. 26 forecast “significant” job cuts at the investment bank as the government-owned lender posted its seventh straight full-year loss.
As part of his restructuring program, the CEO plans to cut the number of countries in which the securities unit operates by two-thirds and shrink US operations.
“The retreat by RBS in investment banking has been going on for a number of years – this is really just the next phase,” Sandy Chen, an analyst at Cenkos Securities Plc in London, told Bloomberg Television’s Francine Lacqua and Guy Johnson on Wednesday.
It’s driven “by increased capital and regulatory requirements to pull back from investment banking activities in general,” he added.
The bank’s shares were little changed at 370 pence at 11:25 a.m. in London, and are down about 6 percent this year.
