"Multitasking" was the buzzword for the 90s. Perhaps "core business" will be recalled as the buzzword for the 00s.
LONDON — The financial crisis hit hard among investment banks across Europe on Thursday, particularly in London.Imagine that! Banks are now considering getting out of hedge scams and going back to traditional houses of finance and commerce. Wow!
Statement From Credit Suisse (credit-suisse.com)
Credit Suisse announced plans to cut 5,300 jobs, or 11 percent of its global work force, and the Japanese giant, Nomura, which acquired Lehman Brothers’ European business, said it planned 1,000 job cuts at its London office.
Germany’s Commerzbank will eliminate 1,200 jobs in London and shut Dresdner Kleinwort’s merger advisory unit in the city, adding to the hundreds of thousands of jobs financial institutions already cut worldwide.
“The cuts need to be seen in context with plans to reduce risk weighted assets and signal a refocusing on simpler products and a move to adjust risk,” said Matthew Clark, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods in London.
Banks are focusing on the more traditional businesses, including wealth management, and abandoning riskier operations as the credit crisis and the resulting economic downturn intensified. HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, said on Monday it would cut 500 jobs at its British banking business and Standard Chartered, a British bank that makes most of its profit in Asia, announced 200 cuts in Hong Kong.
Maybe the U.S. auto manufacturers can get a loan the old-fashioned way... from banks...