A branch of ABN Amro in AmsterdamEVERT ELZINGA/The Associated Press
ABN Amro Holding NV, the nationalized Dutch bank, said it would shed an additional 2,350 jobs – about 9 per cent of its staff – in the next three to four years as it cuts costs in preparation for a return to private ownership.
The job losses will come on top of the 6,000 that have already been announced as part of the integration of Fortis's Dutch banking assets into ABN, which created the Netherlands' third-largest bank by assets.
"We are on schedule and more than halfway through the integration, which will run until the end of 2012," Gerrit Zalm, ABN's chairman, said on Friday. "Unfortunately, these initiatives will have an impact on our employees."
Banks across Europe are trimming staff amid tougher than expected market conditions, as investors continue to fret about their exposure to struggling southern eurozone economies. UBS AG, the Swiss group, earlier this week said it would cut 3,500 jobs as part of a 2-billion franc ($2.5-billion U.S.) cost-cutting program in the next two years, bringing the total redundancies across the sector to more than 60,000.
HSH Nordbank AG, one of the banks most exposed to the global shipping industry, added to the gloom late on Thursday by announcing that it would cut more than one in three jobs in the next three years.
The move would allow it to comply with big cuts to its business required by EU competition authorities to compensate for a bail-out in the crisis. Staff numbers will be cut from 3,300 to 2,100, the Hamburg-based Landesbank said.
Paul Lerbinger, chief executive, said HSH Nordbank would be a "good quarter smaller" than foreseen two years ago in a post-crisis restructuring. "Under the new underlying conditions our cost base is much too high, with the result that cost cuts and thus also job cuts are inevitable," he said.
HSH is withdrawing from asset-based aviation finance and international property finance and will close branches in Amsterdam, Paris and Shanghai.
At ABN, Mr. Zalm said the effect of the European sovereign debt crisis on its business and the global economy was still "unclear."
"Though our resilient businesses and strong capital base put us in a good position, we remain cautious for the remainder of the year," Mr. Zalm said.
The Dutch government, which nationalized ABN during the financial crisis, would like to return the bank to private ownership in 2014, preferably through a stock market listing.
The bank reported a net profit of €864-million ($1.25-billion) for the first half of the year, against a loss of €968-million a year earlier, when it was hit by a much larger restructuring charge.