 "JPMorgan fires traders, cuts pay")
The bank also cut equity analysts in the US last week, three people familiar with the move said, with one saying that about a dozen were affected. Equities-trading revenue fell 5 per cent across the globe from 2011, the third-straight year of decline, according to industry analytics firm Coalition Ltd.
JPMorgan has pared equities jobs each year since 2008, former and current executives said. Equities-trading chief Tim Throsby has been reviewing the unit since around March of last year, these people said. Assisted by Marc Badrichani and Jason Sippel, they found that pay for equities traders and sales staff was too high compared with the unit’s revenue, the people said.
Revenue at the unit slipped 1.8 per cent to $4.4 billion last year, compared with a 4 per cent gain in fixed-income trading revenue to $15.4 billion. About three managing directors and 18 executive directors, including Andrew Crofton and Julian Plant, were cut, current and former executives said yesterday. Kevin Smart, a vice president, also left, two people said.
Jennifer Zuccarelli, a spokeswoman for the New York-based company, said she couldn’t comment on the departures. Plant declined to comment, while Crofton and Smart didn’t respond to messages.
Equities trading was hardest-hit by job cuts in 2012, with the top 10 investment banks eliminating 2,700 front-office workers, or about 14 per cent, according to data released yesterday by Coalition. Equities-trading revenue at the 10 banks was $33 billion, the lowest since 2008, Coalition said.
Volume plunges
Cash equities, the trading of common shares on public exchanges, produced $10 billion in revenue at the 10 largest investment banks, down 40 per cent from 2008 as firms grappled with plunging volume, the data show.
Equities account for about a quarter of total trading and investment-banking revenue. They include commissions and gains from buying and selling stocks, futures, options and other equity derivatives, as well as fees and interest income from providing services and lending to hedge funds.
Throsby and other executives prepared staff in the Americas for reductions and lower pay with a conference call on January 17, the day after the bank reported a record $21.3 billion in net income for 2012. Headcount, executives said, would be coming down, according to two people on the call. The bank would probably replace more highly paid senior executives with less- costly junior traders and sales staff, they said. Pay in the broader investment bank, which includes dealmakers and fixed-income traders, fell by about 3 per cent in 2012, people briefed on the compensation said this month. Throsby, who joined JPMorgan from Citadel Investment Group LLC almost three years ago, was promoted in September from running derivatives trading and sales to head all equities trading and sales.
Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, 56, ousted top managers and shuffled others around after traders in the chief investment office lost more than $6.2 billion on a bad derivatives bet in the first three quarters of last year.