RBS Will Eliminate as Many as 9,000 Jobs Worldwide to Save $3.66 Billion

[Purveyor]

By Andrew MacAskill and Kevin Crowley

April 7 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, the biggest bank controlled by the U.K. Treasury, may eliminate an additional 9,000 jobs worldwide as it seeks to repay a government bailout.

The cuts total about 5 percent of RBS’s global workforce. The actual number of jobs lost may be “significantly lower” because of efforts to shift employees into new positions, Edinburgh-based RBS said in a statement.

RBS may be forced to eliminate more positions as it seeks to pay off government aid and return the bank to shareholder control. The government today increased its stake in RBS to 70 percent after investors shunned a rights offering. The bank plans to reduce costs by 2.5 billion pounds ($3.7 billion), or 14 percent, over the next three years.

“To cut 14 percent of costs when staff costs are around 60 percent of total expenses, there are a lot of job losses to come,” said Simon Willis, a London-based analyst at NCB Stockbrokers Ltd.

The potential job losses include about 4,500 in the U.K., adding to 2,700 announced previously, an RBS spokesman said. Most of the positions will be eliminated in the bank’s group manufacturing division, which includes technology, purchasing and property services, RBS said.

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