UBS continues with job cuts in India, lays off 6 more

MUMBAI: Swiss investment bank UBS, which has seen more than three high-profile exits in India in the past two months, has laid off six employees, people familiar with the matter said.

Of the six, three are said to be mid to junior level employees, while others include a senior research analyst, a member of the sales team and a member from the equity capital market division, who were let go last week.

With the recent staff retrenchments at its India back office, the global financial firm joins Credit Suisse and HSBC in cutting jobs in the country to cope with shrinking profits globally.

"While it would be difficult to break it down regionally, it would be reasonable to say that India is not immune to the bank's commitment to reduce costs across the bank," said a bank official, who did not wish to be named. A Hong Kong-based spokesperson for the bank declined to comment.

In the past two months, UBS India has also seen the exit of Ganesh Murugaiyan, head of investment banking; Ajay Mahajan, head of financial markets and institutional banking, and more recently Purvesh Shah, global head of capital markets.

UBS was one of the worst-hit banks in the global economic crisis, taking more than £35 billion of write-downs and credit losses and suffering the biggest loss in Swiss corporate history in 2008. It now plans to eliminate CHF 2 billion (£1.5 billion) from its annual costs by the end of 2013.

On August 23, UBS cut 3,500 jobs globally. The announcement came after Bank of America laid off 10,000 staff and HSBC downsized its team by 30,000 during the same month.

Goldman Sachs was one of the first major global investment banks to announce its intentions to lay off employees in the US this summer, while moving a portion of the jobs to Singapore.

Credit Suisse laid off more than 14 people from its India wealth management team in the recent past. In July, Credit Suisse said it would cut about 2,000 jobs, or 4% of its workforce, globally. HSBC has asked more than 120 employees, engaged in the recovery of sticky loans in India, to find new jobs.

The firm, however, did make some new hires in the equity business division.