Baring to cut staff
Tuesday 16th December 2008, 2:30PM GMT.
STAFF at Baring Asset Management are today facing up to the possibility of losing their jobs .
The company’s head office in London broke the news to staff that the decision had been made to consolidate the Guernsey office and move many of its functions to the City.
It is unclear how many of the nine Guernsey-based staff could lose their jobs but a spokeswoman from head office confirmed that there would be a reduction.
‘We will continue to have a team in Guernsey,’ she said. ‘They will be focusing on servicing our clients and their advisers. But it is likely that this will be with a somewhat smaller team than at present.
‘Baring Asset Management Channel Islands will be delegating the management of client portfolios to Baring Asset Management in London,’ she aded.
The spokeswoman would not be drawn on how long it would take for the staffing decisions to be made and also refused to comment on how many Guernsey jobs would be lost.
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Message to the upbeat brigade.
Where are you all now?
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Paul
I would imagine that other finance houses are already sniffing around Baring’s to fill their own staff shortages with these experienced people
Far too early to start a panic
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Paul
I think you may be over-stating the effect in this instance.
Its hardly a surprise. Barings Asset Management only employs around a dozen people here (not to be confused with the former Barings Bank, now Northern Trust, which employs hundreds locally).
Its an asset management operation and so its fee income will be derived directly from a percentage of assets under management. World markets are down typically 30% to 40% across the board, so the fee income of asset managers will also be down 30% to 40%. Any business losing 30% to 40% of its income has to take steps to address it and if its the only activity of that company then re-deployment in other areas isn’t possible.
Credit Suisse laid off 9 out of maybe 300 staff. That puts things into slightly better perspective.
6 months ago there were estimated to be around 800 job vacancies in finance. The downturn in world markets and the credit crunch have probably reduced that number to around 200 currently. Whether the vacancies match the skill sets of those being made redundant is clearly the issue in terms of whether those made redundant manage to find new jobs easily.
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Surely the shrinkage of firms will be across the sector and so the few firms that go public are losing staff that other firms are not in position to take on due to the systemic factors? The much-vaunted “job vacancies” figures may have been aspirational to an extent as the industry was asked to bang the drum a bit at the time of the Zero 10 debate. Labour liquidity will be reduced in 2009 as people fear the last in first out argument and sit still. On the one hand we are told the finance sector is multi-stranded but on the other hand the guy selling upmarket kitchens is losing potential customers – so for him there is no distinction.
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