Barclays likely to layoff 2,100 jobs

Financial services major Barclays is to layoff 2,100 in investment banking and money management, as part of its cost cutting measures.

"Barclays is cutting about 2,100 jobs worldwide in investment banking and money management as it slashes costs to cope with the fall-out from the credit crisis", The Financial Times said.

According to FT, the company is cutting 1,300 people from Barclays Capital, the debt-focused investment banking business, 500 from the Barclays Wealth private banking arm, and 330 in asset management business Barclays Global Investors. Overall, the cuts amount to 7 per cent of the three divisions' staff, it added.

Noting that Barclays declined to reveal where the job cuts would come, the newspaper said that the axe is expected to fall heavily in London and New York.

However, the bank would continue to hire in areas such as equities, the report published online said.

Last year, Barclays had acquired the US operations of bankrupt Lehman Brothers.

Financial Times reported that at Barclays Wealth, cuts are expected in London, Glasgow and the Channel Islands. Quoting Unite, which represents staff at Barclays Wealth's division, the daily said, "We cannot continue with this situation of daily job cuts without any justification or explanation of the broader strategy for the bank."

"The bank, which built the units aggressively over the past five years to account for almost half of revenue, said it wanted to be 'appropriately sized', given the current market conditions," it added.

The move is likely to spark fears of further cost-cutting in Barclays' retail and corporate banking division, which includes its bank branch network, the report noted.

Agencies

More banks reveal exposure to Madoff

Banks and investment funds across the world lined up on Monday to admit investing billions of dollars in the companies of Bernard Madoff, whom US authorities accused of masterminding a massive fraud.

Britain’s HSBC was the latest bank to join the growing list, saying it had exposure of around $1 billion, making it one of the biggest victims of the alleged $50 billion fraud. Royal Bank of Scotland and Man Group in the UK, Japan’s Nomura and France’s Natixis also said they were hit by the worldwide scandal.

Financial companies, reeling after a year of enormous writedowns on bad credit assets, have so far tallied up more than $10 billion in direct and indirect exposure to the possible fraud by Madoff, the 70-year old trader who was arrested on Thursday. “There is a broader danger here for the industry,” an equity analyst said.

“This huge fraud, supposedly in blue-chip funds, is going to make people nervous, and you’ve already seen massive redemptions,” the analyst said. Shares in France’s Natixis were down 4.7% after it said it had as much as E450 million ($605 million) of exposure to the fiasco. The wider DJ Stoxx banking index was 0.9% lower.

US prosecutors and regulators have accused Madoff, a former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market, of running the fraud through his investment advisory business, which managed at least one hedge fund. Man Group, the world’s largest listed hedge fund manager, said it was exposed to Madoff through its fund of funds business RMF, which has $360 million invested in funds directly or indirectly sub-advised by Madoff. BNP Paribas and Santander detailed potential losses on Sunday, and others joined at the start of the trading week, with Italy’s UniCredit showing exposure of around E75 million.

RBS said its potential loss could amount to some £400 million ($595 million), if it assumed that the value of its assets in Madoff’s firm were nil.

Its exposure to the scandal was through trading and collateralised lending to funds of hedge funds invested in the group, the bank said in a statement.

Hedge funds are already struggling after a year that has badly damaged their boast that they can make money whichever way the market turns.

Source: Agencies

Dubai real estate suffers major setback

Dubai's property sector suffered a series of blows this week after brokers confirmed a rise in distressed sales, a real estate guide downgraded its rating on residential property and an Islamic lender suspended new loans.

The once-booming real estate sector of the emirate is showing signs of collapsing due to the global credit crisis, as prices fall sharply and buyers struggle to get mortgage loans.

"There is a sizeable increase in the number of property owners in an urgent state to sell," Robert Macnair, sales director of Dubai-based Elysian Real Estate, told the media.

"It could be they have a large payment coming up or they've seen the market dropping over the last month ... there is a real sense of urgency."

Property prices on Dubai's Palm Jumeirah island, a man-made peninsula developed by government-owned Nakheel, have fallen as much as 40 percent since September, real estate brokers said on Thursday.

Elysian this week sent out a text message to up to 40,000 mobile phones advertising distressed property sales offering a luxury six bedroom, six bathroom villa in Dubailand, a multi-billion-dollar luxury theme park.

The villa advertised costs 21 million UAE dirhams ($5.72 million) - half its original price - and will be completed in 2009, the text read.

Dubai downgrade

Global Property Guide cut its long-term investment rating on Dubai residential property on Wednesday from neutral to negative due to the drop in gross rental yields from last year.

"Gross yields are now an average of 5.5 percent, significantly down from an average of 7.5 percent a year ago ... At these levels, Dubai is less attractive than it was previously as an investment property," it said in a research note.

Global Property Guide said Dubai has "an enormous" amount of new supply and expects prices to fall over the next 2-3 years.

To compound matters, Dubai Islamic mortgage lender Amlak AMLK.DU said it suspended new loans. This follows moves by several banks to tighten lending conditions in August and September.

"It is very hard to get loans now. Customers are suffering," Rehab Gouda, senior sales agent at Al Jabal Real Estate said.

"Either they have pre-approval from before the crisis, or they are cash buyers."

Source: Agencies