By Sneha Shankar - Citigroup Inc. NYSE:C cut between 200 jobs to 300 jobs in its stock and bond trades division in order to reduce costs, news reports said Sunday.
According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Steve Prince, the younger brother of Citi’s former CEO Charles Prince who was fired in 2007, was among the nearly 300 people who left the firm. The job cuts, which have not been confirmed by Citi, amount to nearly 2 percent of the total workforce in the company's global markets business.
“We continue to tightly manage expenses, making targeted headcount reductions in light of current market conditions,” Danielle Romero-Apsilos, a spokeswoman for Citigroup said, according to Bloomberg. “At the same time, we are adding some talent strategically.”
The job cut comes as bond trading has seen a slump and the bank too expects to see some decline in trading revenue. According to Bloomberg, Citigroup’s chief financial officer John Gerspach had reportedly said last month that he estimates the trading revenue to drop by “high mid-teens.”
The banking industry has been cutting jobs across business segments as it adjusts to new regulations and loan demands.
Citigroup, which had 251,000 employees at the end of 2013, down from 323,000 in 2008, has been slashing expenses and abandoning entire business units since it was forced to take a government bailout following the financial crisis. Last week, the bank stated that it agreed to pay $1.13 billion in cash to settle claims against legacy mortgage securities, which are said to have been at the center of the global financial crisis of 2008.
The bank is slated to announce quarterly earnings Monday, which is expected to be lower than projections, just like JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s NYSE:JPM, whose trading revenues fell 17 percent in the first quarter, according to the Journal.