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HSBC To Fire 50,000, One In Five Jobs, To Fund Dividends To Shareholders
Just days after JPMorgan revealed it would fire another 5,000 by the end of the year in a "scalpel" headcount reduction, overnight the world's favorite drug money laundering bank HSBC unleashed the "machete" and announced it would cut almost 50,000 workers, or one in five bankers, a move which would shrink the investment bank division by one-third. The reason: the same why US corporations are laying off tens of thousands so they can fund record stock buybacks and enrich their shareholders - to boost profits so that more money can be channeled in the form of dividends.
According to Reuters, the bank's second big overhaul since the financial crisis "will speed up a cull of unprofitable units and countries by cutting almost 50,000 jobs - half of them from selling businesses in Brazil and Turkey." Gulliver warned that its decision to sell its businesses in Turkey and Brazil, where it had failed to gain scale, showed that HSBC "had no sacred cows".
Considering these countries are either deeply in recession or on the cusp, the massively layoffs will likely have a profound macro impact on the regional economies.
It will cut its assets by a quarter, or $290 billion on a risk adjusted basis (RWA) by 2017, and slice $140 billion from its investment bank which will subsequently make up less than a third of HSBC's balance sheet from 40 percent now.
But while the pink slips galore, shareholders will be happy:
Gulliver also pledged higher payouts for investors. "I believe that we are in the foothills of another prolonged period of dividend growth for the firm," he said. He noted that the bank's dividend had grown from 17 years from 1991 to 2008.
Still, some are getting skeptical that one can grow cash flows by massive attrition:
But investors were cautious about how HSBC would translate job cuts into meaningful savings given the higher cost of doing business in a tougher post-crisis business environment marked by new rules on risk and compliance.
"Slaughtering the staff is not necessarily the solution unless management makes the bank considerably less complex," said James Antos, analyst at Mizuho Securities Asia.
The stock suggested as much when HSBC shares dipped 0.1% in the aftermath of the announcement, pressured also by disappointment about the bank's decision to lower its target for return on equity to greater than 10 percent by 2017, down from a previous target of 12-15 percent by 2016.
Some more details on who gets the machete, or rather, the axe:
In addition to the jobs lost through disposals, others will be cut by consolidating IT and back office operations, and closing branches.
Gulliver said about 7,000-8,000 job cuts would be in Britain, or one in six UK staff. The UK retail banking business would also be rebranded to meet new rules designed to ringfence customer deposits from riskier investment banking operations.
Gulliver said it was too early to say whether the group would keep the ring-fenced bank, which will be headquartered in the English city of Birmingham and account for about two thirds of UK revenues, or $11 billion.
Finally, on a very sensitive topic to the UK in recent months, HSBC also set out 11 criteria for helping it decide whether to move its headquarters from London to Asia, likely Hong Kong. "They include factors such as economic growth, the tax system, government support for the growth of the banking system, long-term stability and an ability to attract good staff. HSBC said it would complete the review of the possible move by the end of the year."
The bottom line: HSBC will push through annual cost savings of up to $5 billion by 2017. It will cost up to $4.5 billion in the next three years to achieve the savings. In other words, HSBC will report massive GAAP losses and hope analysts give it credit for billions in non-GAAP addbacks.
The problem is that even this practice of endless adjustments to bottom line EPS is getting increasingly more scrutinty as explained in "The Non-GAAP Revulsion Arrives: Experts Throw Up All Over "Made Up, Phony, Smoke And Mirrors" Numbers" because sooner or later someone will realize that when "one-time, non-recurring" charges, settlements and costs are recurring and non one-time, then it is merely ordinary course of business, which also means that what on paper are record profits are in GAAP reality massive losses.
Oh, and before we forget: what better way to celebrate a global "recovery" than by laying off 20% of one's workforce?
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what do you call 50K unemployed bankers?
a good start.
Waiter!
I would have just fired management....but that's just me.
I'll just send a couple nailguns over there. Maybe they can figure it out.
Sure am glad I took the free-lunch-for-an-interview from these guys, and walked.
Like I said, "And so it begins"....
http://galeinnes.blogspot.com/2014/06/worldwide-bank-bail-ins-coming-soo...
Digital banking in 3...,2...,1....
Maybe a few or more of them have some juicy leaks in their bug out bag.
Advice: don’t take any of that leaky stuff to the authorities.. take it to the Guardian or other established independent press.
It just might be time that the criminal financial racketeers learn that they cannot act with impunity.
Where this is all headed: One guy sitting on top of a giant pile of money, the rest of us scratching around naked in the dirt.
What are we to expect when the government attacks the core of the HSBC business model -- drug money laundering.
Good for HSBC. When one in five "workers" is too busy texting to be productive it is time to let them move to a career where they want to work. Something that they might enjoy for life like flipping burgers at McDonald's.
In all fairness, it takes a LOT of honest spreadsheeting to hide three or four centuries of opium trade and slave trafficking.
THAT'S gonna leave a mark!
Zorg: "Fire one million..."
I hear Big Ben has a nice scenic view to jump from.
I sense a disturbance in the force. HSBC announced today they would withdraw from China....that's the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank we're talking about. These penny-pinching Scotsmen from an ancient Hong are just the canary in the coal mine
Speaking of "hiding things", lets not forget that HSBC is the custodian for GLD's physical gold.
The best way to rob a bank is to....?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69CCsfaZlA
Spain thought the same thing back in the 1500's when they had most of the worlds gold and now look where they are........revolutions have a way of changing the game every so often even for the global elite.
.
I'd say we were heading back to Household Debt to GDP at 100%.
Household Debt to GDP for United States©
2014:Q4: 79.96307 Ratio (it came down 17.5 points from nearly 100% of GDP in 2009)
Quarterly, Not Seasonally Adjusted, HDTGPDUSQ163N,
Doesn't matter if they're bankers or waiters. Of those 50,000, how many will only be able to scratch together a living with the scraps that's out there?
My next question is: how many of those will be the fortunate ones that get a job with lower pay and benefits at the outsourcing company(ies) that HSBC will contract to do the functions that were once done in-house?
And to think that those might actually be the lucky ones.
The boot keeps grinding...
Promising, the dog eats its own tail - capitalist cannibalism gets closer to its balls :); it just shows that there is not much left, enough they can munch from a society without a middle-class.
you know the service economy is for all our good...LOL ship off shore non service jobs in the millions, d and r both support Free trade which has helped produce 92 million serfs no longer in work force in usa, now the new Obuma free trade deal gets GOP support: 2 parties only on issues like gender and race and such, who can marry who shit, while the real hard economic terrorism and war making is agreed by both.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/08/exclusive-busted-fres...
The Guardian? Oh you mean The Red Shield who Cameron's family has worked for - for 200+ years financing wars. Wars = mass murder of innocent people for profit.
OK, news to me..
So Alex Jones, maybe?
Sure am glad I took the free-lunch-for-an-interview from these guys, and walked.
Smarter than 50 thousand people.....impressive!
The Goldman free lunch is in my bucket list.
If you are '1 in 50,000' in a country of 300MM, there are 6000 people just like you.
Never forget, you are a completely unique individual. Just like everybody else.
Somebody downvoted you for using math and stuff.
UBS does the best free lunches out of the whole bunch.
Then again, I've never met with someone from Deka, Helaba, or Commerzbank, so I actually cannot speak universally, of the free lunches I got, UBS gets the cake.
A former colleague's kid in Germany had a choice of joining HSBC and Officer Training in the German Army/Bundeswehr.
I'll bet he's glad he took the latter.
I would have just fired management....but that's just me.
I wouldn't even consider these people bankers. Nothing more than administrative worker bees. Problems lie at the top and the outsiders who control them. Technocracy demands removal of the human element and centralization of control with a cashless society.
what do you call 50K unemployed bankers?
50K house sellers
All thease 50k bankers will be up to thier armpits in debt.
Long defaults
what do you call 50K unemployed bankers?
a spoon movement to dry an ocean.
this is morphing, not deleting. emptying societal structure from jobs leads to revolution, ain't goin to happen ,they will all go internet, regroup, and create like 5000 mini edge founds...
I hear police are looking for 'a few good men' to help them track down those 'vicious killers' who 'scaped from "Clinton's Maximun Correction facility" using power drills and welding torches.
So there's lots of work out there...lots of jobs if the bankers are willing to get their hands dirty.
HSBC bank peaked with 330,000 employees back in Dec 2007. They laid off 64,000 over the last 7 years and reduced their employee size to 266,000 by the end of Dec 2014.
However, today in one stroke, HSBC announced that they will lay off or sell over 50,000 employees including Brazil and Turkey operations immediately!
This is almost equal to ALL the employees sold or laid off in the last 7 years!
And they say the global economy is improving.....LOL
HSBC is also planning to relocate their HQ out of London, either to Birmingham or to HK.
HSBC to cut up to 50,000 jobs, slash investment bank
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/09/us-hsbc-strategy-idUSKBN0OO2KK20150609
hsbc job cuts
JP Morgan will fire over 5,000 employees as announced last week: jp morgan job cuts
Last month, top Indian banks like Axis Bank and ICICI bank also announced that they have laid off thousands of employees.
ICICI Bank, Axis cut employee headcount
http://www.business-standard.com/article/finance/icici-bank-axis-reduce-employee-head-count-115052601419_1.html
In March 2015, RBS announced sale of their Coutts Private Bank as well as lay offs of more than 14,000 jobs globally.
RBS Investment Bank Said to Cut Up to 14,000 Jobs in Revamp
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/rbs-investment-bank-said-to-cut-up-to-14-000-jobs-in-overhaul
Meanwhile, thousands of job cuts, could be anywhere between 10,000 to 20,000 are expected at Deutsche bank any day now...
Look at the crazy mess new Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan is expected to fix
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/research-notes-on-deutsche-bank-management-and-structural-problems-2015-6#ixzz3cXi9pNNs
In March 2015, Credit Suisse also announced 2,900 job cuts...
Credit Suisse’s new boss could axe 2,900 investment bank jobs: analysts
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/11/us-creditsuisse-ceo-investmentbank-idUSKBN0M70UI20150311
Dozens were fired last week in London and Switzerland: http://news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-en/213157/traders-leave-credit-suisse-as-rates-revival-sours/
Barclays too is not to be left behind is expected to cut over 40,000 jobs....in the next 10 years.
Automation May Lead to 40,000 Job Cuts at Barclays
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/b/6e8926de-08a2-4177-b916-062e74d6b3cf
Hundreds were laid off last week in London etc. by Barclays http://www.financialadvice.co.uk/news/investments/89594-barclays-capital-announces-job-cuts.html
How about the ten branches in the Congo???
Shhhh...I thought no one knew about it.....in each country one branch will remain...meanwhile all the juniors dealing with the 99% will be let go...so that top management can focus exclusively on money laundering transactions.....
Cameron has the HSBC guy as minister and Head of BBC is a HSBC director too.....so the tentacles are all set....no news will come out....that much is assured by the UK Govt! Interestingly, US, Argentina, France, Germany, Switzerland all are investigating HSBC.... EXCEPT UK! LOL
Hope HSBC moves their HQ to China or something where they actually execute criminal banksters!
Cutting their Investment Bank... isn't that were all the Corruption usually is.
Maybe there is an Anti-Corruption Campaign being hatched in China, Russia, and in Democratic Reformers...
It is like 12 years of Credit Bubble by ratio to GDP.
Maybe China already won the war on the USA & Europe was just a Paper Tiger anyway.
Federal Debt Held by Foreign & International Investors as Percent of Gross Domestic Product, 2014:Q4: 34.75940 Percent of GDP, HBFIGDQ188S,
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/HBFIGDQ188S
Current Account Balance: Total Trade of Goods for the United States©, 2013: -703,911,000,000 US Dollars,
Sum Over Component Sub-periods (2013 was last data),
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BPBLTD01USA637S
330,000 employees, BUT... did they pay them Chinese Wages??
Cause that makes a big difference in how I see the Bank.
I guess they better fix the corruption, since these Clowns are going to be rubbing shoulders with the rest of us real soon... for their own safety.
I don't know what loser it was that -1'd you.
Yeah, like I thought when I was reading the article. It doesn't make any sense. They shouldn't be in a sudden rush to make money like that when they seem to be making enough already.
Something political is afoot.
Thanks for the support and reading/commenting.
It's not just about money, Phoenix.
I believe it is all about demand destruction and absolutely no business to go around.
Secondly, more and more people are investing in real estate (in cash) or other businss activities just for survival without using the banks. Partly, also because banks dont wish to lend to anyone. they ar ebusy filling their own pockets or filling the gaps in their own balance sheets.
Thirdly, the large corporates are using bonds instead of loans in order to expand. This way banks lose interest income while corporate CFO does not have to deal with these idiotic banks daily or annually to 'renew' or rollover the loans and prove that all is ok in this ever declining sales world.
Fourthly, Chinese have showed up on the global stage in the past 5 years and are financing everything everywhere as well as taking construction and interior contracts or trade back to their own fellow Chinese. This way cash flows are now exclusively going to Chinese both for interest income as well as profit from any sort of business activity. Since they are the only lenders in the world, they win hands down.
Western banks are simply dying and that's a reality despite QE and whatever political measures, thanks to all the above and the fact that millions are turning poorer in G7 nations due to their own Govt's policies with no business for the banks or new jobs being created except in the minds of the rich and the political class inside their ivory towers......While Russia, Africa, India and China wont let G7 banks even enter their countries......We are actually living through historical times!
Yeah, yeah, the old lawyer joke refrain but its not funny. Its always the people on the bottom that go first and then they work their way up from there. The people at the top, NEVER go anywhere except in exceptionally rare cases. If they do go, its with a golden parachute that is the equivalent of winning the lottery for all the people on the bottom.
It's always easier to handcuff them when they've come down from the 35th floor to the sidewalk.
Not in top shape for the perp walk, however.
I've never been on of those "reduce the surplus population" types before, but I'm starting to think: if these 50k are so unnecessary, why not give them a little "injection" as they walk out the door? And how about those 90mil+ people in the USSA that aren't working? Why do they still need to exist?
OK, I'll go get my coffee now.
<deleted duplicate>
Kind of makes a bunch of sense, after all.
They hired them originally to service all the money laundering business for those illegal drug cartels, and if officially they have stopped that (cease & desist) then they would have to lay them off.
A nice start..
More monay for dividends?
Or the complete privatization of the market?
1st masks the goal of the 2nd with the biggest payouts to institutionals.
Don't worry, plenty of jobs out here in the potash mines, and could use some help next harvest. And there's more opportunity in..... wait... bankers? Oh, never mind, looking for someone useful to society.
More buybacks to fund bubblious prices.
the Q is what those 50k were doing if the company can fire them so easy ?
50 thousand door greeters?
They can always go to Walmart.
Well we seem to have closed like 6 Walmarts.
So we are closing down big TBTF Banks and Closing Walmarts... and McDonalds is losing Sales. And US had low GDP Due to Weather, Global GDP is down due to Strong Dollar.
Hm... Sounds like official Recession admission next quarter or 3rd QTR.
The result of which will be MOAR.
Jump banksters jump.
in Brazil local banks will buy HSBC operations, so the regional impact is muted. if that's a wise decision on local banks is a different question.
Have you head of synergy, friend? as HSBC in Brazil had been focusing on high-net worth individuals and companies, three quarters of its workforce won't be needed, as the potential buyrs already have the branches and systems in place.
We need MOAR QE....NOT!!!
If Israel wants the USA to defend them & Saudi Arabia, then they should do something about the Systemic Corruption, Debt, Funny Business in our financing of Municipalities & States, and the complicated linkages in TBTF Banking.
- Bill Clinton, Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, Phil Gramm, Larry Summers, Hank Paulson, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama all say how strong Wall Street & London Banking is
- No Conservative Banking
- No Real Leadership from Private Banking
- No Oversight on Private Banking (SROs)
- To Bad we don't have Honest Brokers in DOJ, FBI, SEC, FINRA, FTC, GAO, CBO, FED, Treasury, OCC, FSOC, BCFP, CFTC, FDIC, FHFA, SIPC
As Stakeholders we demand DOJ, AG, Loretta Lynch take her job seriously and cut meetings with Obama's Staff. She should look at Systemic Racketeering and prepare to Reveal this to the US Public who have been kept largely in the Dark!
or whatever. Just be a stepford AG for Obama's Staff.
You forgot the /sarcasm...
The biggest bankers on the planet (Rothschilds) built Israel.
Israel is the black heart of corruption where evil comes from...well that, and the City of London and NYC.
:crocodile tears:
Snake eating it's own tail. Guess no need to chop it at the head.
First Deutsche now HSBC, man this is shaping up to be an interesting month. Now give me a side of CITI bank and mission complete.
Move headquarters to Asia? IIRC, HSBC stands for "Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation". WTF? It was moving operations to Britian that it became the fraud factory and money laundering outfit that it is today.
Good news for the global employment reports coming up. Don't look at this as 50,000 less jobs - look at this as 100,000 more jobs, as each worker now gets to work TWO part time jobs!
If those 50,000 were smart, they would pool their resources, start another bank and go after HSBC customers as a 'clean' bank without all the convictions and payouts for wrongdoing that all the major banks have admitted to.
there are too many banks in the economy already
Financial terrorism as a method to conquer the world is failing. Now what.
Something is going down soon with banks. Layoffs, sudden resignations. It smacks of 2007-2008 right before Lehman imploded
Drawing that conclusion is not only wrong,but --- pre-Lehman--- there were no massive layoffs.
"Something" has been going on with banks: forever.
Want to see GS in the gutter. Please.
The banker suicide rate will skyrocket...maybe some them will actually be suicides.
Ah, they always clobber low level people. Tellers, loan officers, etc. Every day people in local communities. Reducing services and moving us one step closer to all electronic banking.
Frankly, my opinion is that if you work in banking at all... on any level... fuck you for supporting a criminal operation. And, you deserve to get canned out of nowhere. Realistically it should be a shut down with Federal Marshalls for violations of racketeering laws to start (tip of iceberg).
But, but, but... the real crime is that none of the top brass is doing hard time in a nasty hell hole of a prison, having been stripped of all assets.
Not all banks are part of the cabal, nitwit.
Banks will be seen as banks. Bankers will be seen as bankers. When people can't get thier money out... or get flogged by regulations... etc., they won't care if they are dealing with a local credit union or Chase.
If banks are "in the system" (FDIC insured, for example) they are in tow to Washington and NY one way or another. There is no such thing as "not supporting the system" here.
How many of the 50,000 are borderline slave laborers working in the bowels of for-profit prisons?
Bullish on nail guns
shows everyone how much the money laundering was a main part of their business plan...
Anyone have any Stories about the Closure of BCCI Bank?
Bank of Credit and Commerce International
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/12/business/world-class-fraud-bcci-pulled...
Didn't RTC close over 500 Banks in the Savings and Loan Scandal?
Failures and Assistance Transactions of all Institutions by Resolution Trust Fund (RTC) for the United States and Other Areas (328 total in high year 1989)
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BKIRTCA641N
When is the government going to cut 50,000 useless public servants .... that never happens ?
Another word for junk share buyback
all they need are a couple people to take care of their billionaire clients and dozen investment bankers, a couple bond traders... I mean you don't make money making loans and paying interest on savings... It is clear the banks really are just criminal stock and bond trading entities. The little people don't need banks...they are going to steal your money anyway!
Looking more and more like the EUSA and China are about to part ways. And this HSBC bank-like monster is choosing to move over to the China side. They must know something.
China now has a comprehensive productional system.
Which the EUSA now largely lacks.
A few more pokes and the Dragon will stop sending merchandise to Walmart.
So, maybe a bad omen for us.
This crop of firings should produce at a couple hundred whistleblowers.
FOIA is hiring .... Lois Lerner wannabees !
It's the derivatives bomb, baby.
Fuse is lit and fizzling...
In a corrupt economy with corrupt governance, GAAP is a major problem.
Bullish in every single way.
:)
Just another reason why To-Big-To-Fail companies should be broken up, especially banks! Smaller local banks know their customers and want to support their communities. These huge megalith banks don't care. Wake up people we are being treated like sheep going to the slaughter.
Well they have useful, transferable skills, no doubt.
Does India have some sort of work visa program for bank tellers, janitors, and loan originators?
Cashing out of Brazil and Turkey, countries that have been too friendly with Putin and not friendly enough with banksters. Never mind that both are economies whose best years are ahead of them, not behind them.
Oh, and leaving London for Hong Kong, one step ahead of a Brexit referendum. Never mind that Britain is the only EU economy worth a damn and it will only get better once it leaves the EU.
Buybacks? In this case they may simply have concluded they've worn out their welcome.
"Never mind that Britain is the only EU economy worth a damn and it will only get better once it leaves the EU."
do you have numbers to that? I have one: a financial accounts deficit of 100 billion, this year
If their only strategy to increase profits is by cutting costs then they don't need a CEO or CFO. A graduate accounting student will perform those tasks just fine. A real CEO provides strategic guidance on how to increase market share by introducing new products and services. Fire those incompetent fucks.
These are all poor paying jobs and will be replaced with two or three part-time well paying ones. The great jobs recovery is finally under way.
If the number of announced HSBC layoffs roughly matches the number of HSBC bank tellers, you better head down to the local branch and take some out for a rainy bank-holiday.
Tell me again how the banks can afford these fines.
You are witnessing banking Darwinism perverted.
I expect massive losses of office supplies.
oh noes! Bankers will be fired.
Hold on, I gotta find a crocodile to milk for tears so I can act like I have fucks to give.
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How are they going to get all that same labour done with all those people gone?
Robots/AIs?
•?•
V-V
What Marxist pig wrote this?!
Enrich the shareholders? Boost profits? Duh!
It's called CAPITALISM, and it's the shareholder's money. If the slugs at HSBC can't productively employ 5000 people and earn a respectable return on the money provided to them by the shareholdrs, take the money away from them and give it to someone who can.
These announced layoffs, yet the market continues upward. Another data point for consensus that we live in a utterly controlled mass propagandized society.
They didn't teach this in socialsm school:
Rational market behavior. Think about it.
Oh, nevermind. Here's some food stamps. Vote for me.
It's that 'on'line' banking and 'streamlined credit-score lending that is making this happen, along with computerization. Profit can get pretties with those that have funds in the bank beyond the base insurable level by dropping the interest, but isn't it almost at zero anyway?.. well then charge them like the investment banks do.... and then it is time for BONUSES!!!