Barclays and Nomura to decide Lehman's fate

“At least 700 investment banking jobs at Lehman Brothers in Europe appeared to be safe as Barclays and Nomura tabled their final offers ”

At least 700 investment banking jobs at Lehman Brothers in Europe appeared to be safe last night as Barclays and Nomura tabled their final offers to buy large swaths of the collapsed American investment bank.

Hundreds more of Lehman’s back-office and support staff could also find themselves new employers within the next 24 hours as the two banks submitted formal proposals to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the administrator for the bank in Britain and continental Europe.

Lehman employs about 1,500 staff in the cash equities business and the mergers and acquisitions advisory unit. The vast majority of them are based in Canary Wharf in East London, but there are also offices across the Continent and in the Middle East.

The two banks appeared to be neck and neck in the race for Lehman assets last night.

Source: Times Online

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Rich clients deserting wealth management businesses

“UBS cuts 5,500 jobs after £5.5bn quarterly loss”

UBS cut 5,500 jobs and sold $15 billion (£7.6 billion) worth of damaged assets yesterday, shares in Switzerland’s biggest bank fell by more than 4 per cent amid fears that restructuring would wreak further havoc

The bank added to investors’ woes by revealing that rich clients were deserting its wealth management business and business banking clients in its home market had pulled almost SwFr2 billion (£960 million) from their accounts in the first quarter

Job cuts include 2,600 staff from UBS’s investment bank, which ran up most of the group’s $37.4 billion in credit crunch writedowns. Fewer than 900 jobs are expected to be lost from the investment bank in London, where UBS employs about 9,000 people. Marcel Rohner, the chief executive indicated that the worst of the staff cull was over.

UBS said that it had agreed to sell a $15 billion book of sub-prime mortgages to BlackRock, the asset management group. The mortgages had already slumped in value from $22 billion, the bank said.

Source: Times Online

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