BofA Plans to Cut 324 New York Jobs Including Investment Bankers, Traders

By Hugh Son - Oct 14, 2011 3:19 AM GMT+0700

Bank of America Corp. (BAC), the lender seeking to reduce expenses after losing half its market value, plans to eliminate 324 jobs in New York starting next month, including investment bankers and equity traders.

Most of the cuts, 250, start Dec. 14 at the firm’s Midtown tower at 1 Bryant Park, according to a filing to the state’s Department of Labor dated Sept. 29. The rest of the company’s terminations start Nov. 30 and affect offices at 2 and 4 World Financial Center and 222 Broadway. Workers have been notified of the cuts, which are part of 3,500 disclosed in August, said T.J. Crawford, a bank spokesman.

Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan, 52, has since said he’ll cut 30,000 more jobs over the next few years, stoking anxiety among the 288,000 workers the Charlotte, North Carolina- based lender had at midyear. Wall Street firms including Barclays Capital and Credit Suisse Group AG have reduced staff as revenue from trading stocks and bonds has eroded.

“There’s no part of Bank of America that’s being left untouched,” said Richard Lipstein, a managing director for headhunter Boyden Global Executive Search. “People who get let go now may have the best prospects of the lot, because there very well may be many more people looking for these kinds of jobs six months down the line.”

Those affected in New York include investment bankers, equity traders, capital-markets workers and technology-and- operations personnel, Crawford said.

Krawcheck, Price

Bank of America aims to cut about $5 billion in annual costs by the end of 2013. Moynihan’s plan, dubbed Project New BAC, included a management shakeup last month that left Sallie Krawcheck and Joe Price jobless. The bank said last week it will give the executives a total of $11 million in severance.

Managers are now examining areas including global markets, commercial banking and corporate banking for cost-cutting opportunities, the company has said. All of those operations have employees in New York. The first phase of Project New BAC affected the firm’s consumer-finance operations.

Wall Street may trim 10,000 more workers through next year, and bonuses for those remaining are “certainly going to be lower,” New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said this week. Each job gained or lost in the industry creates or eliminates three other jobs in the state, he said.

The New York State Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, known as the WARN Act, requires private employers with 50 or more people in New York state to provide 90 days’ notice of a plant closing, mass layoff, relocation or reduction in work hours.

Bank of America fell 5.5 percent to $6.22 at 4:01 p.m. in New York trading. The company is down more than 53 percent since the start of 2011.

In a separate filing to the New York labor department, Capital One Financial Corp. (COF) said it’s cutting 136 positions in Long Island starting Dec. 4.

To contact the reporters on this story: Hugh Son in New York at hson1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net