UBS staff go in first wave of bank job cuts

UBS and SBC, the merging Swiss banks, yesterday began their extensive job-cutting programme. The axe will fall on 50 out of a total of 150 professional staff in UBS's London corporate finance department. Only a handful of their SBC counterparts face the sack.

The 50 staff who have failed to secure positions will not be made redundant right away. They will instead go into a "resources pool", from where they may be offered positions elsewhere in the bank. In reality most of the 50 employees are expected to be issued with redundancy notices.

About 3,000 City employees will be made redundant at the two banks in coming weeks. It had been widely anticipated UBS would bear the brunt of the cuts.

Malcolm LeMay of UBS, European co-head of corporate finance at the new bank, informed his staff of the scale of job cuts in a memo yesterday: "During the course of this week all London bankers will be informed individually whether they will be offered a role in Warburg Dillon Read [the new investment bank] ... around 70 per cent of our London-based bankers will be offered positions."

Mr LeMay said: "They are high-calibre people. I'm confident they will find other jobs, in the resources pool or elsewhere".

It is understood UBS plans to announce equity redundancies - where the bulk of cuts is expected - early next week.