Morning Coffee: Citigroup is on a mission to cut a lot of jobs this week. Top Barclays trader leaves after bonus complaints
It's Easter week for Christians and Ramadan for Muslims and Holi for Hindus, but Citigroup has less ethereal things on its collective mind. Having promised to finish the first stage of its 20,000 job cuts in the first quarter of 2024, it seems to be under a bit of pressure to finish them off.
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Reuters reports that Cit is in the «last phase» of its initial 5,000 job cuts this week. These are the cuts that are removing layers of management and cutting the bank's hierarchy from 13 layers to eight.
Citi has been working its way down through the hierarchy, extracting layers as it goes. This week's cuts are presumably, therefore, the lowest layer, and the pyramidal shape of a hierarchy dictates that they are also the largest. Reuters reports that Citi CEO Jane Fraser has sent a memo to this effect: job cuts are happening Monday to Thursday, before Good Friday, and they will be the biggest yet. There will be cuts, but there will also be «reassignments.»
Citi people who survive this week might be tempted to breathe a sigh of relief. However, this could be premature. This is just the end of phase one. Citi said in January that it plans to cut 5,000 jobs from the managerial delayering, 5,000 from selling businesses, and 10,000 from cutting headcount in support functions like technology and operations. The bulk of the cuts are therefore still to come.
Having declared that it wouldn't cut revenue generating staff, Citi last week also showed signs of willingness to cut investment bankers without deals to work on and cut at least 20 people in the UK.
It's not over yet.
Separately, after Barclays allegedly didn't pay the best bonuses to some of its macro traders, Bloomberg
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