ABN Amro Bank NV plans to cut about 2,800 jobs over four years as the Dutch lender retreats from large parts of its investment bank and further scales back its international presence.
The company is targeting costs of as much as 4.7 billion euros (US$5.6 billion) by 2024, a reduction of about 700 million euros.
The workforce would shrink by about 15 percent, with most reductions to start in 2022, chief executive officer Robert Swaak said in an investor update yesterday.
In August, Swaak announced plans to cut one-third of the lender’s business with corporate clients, dropping company finance outside of Europe and exiting trade and commodity financing altogether.
ABN Amro posted losses in the first half after taking hits on individual corporate clients before returning to profit in the third quarter.
While the bank stuck with its policy of paying out at least 50 percent of profit in dividends, it said shareholder remuneration above that would now be done via share buybacks rather than the dividend payments it has made in previous years.
ABN Amro said its CET1 ratio needs to be higher than 15 percent before it considers share buybacks.
ABN Amro fell as much as 6 percent in Amsterdam trading. The stock has declined by 44 percent this year.
Costs are expected to rise to 5.3 billion euros next year from 5.1 billion euros this year, “due to an increase in regulatory levies, anti-money laundering costs and strategic investments,” the bank said.
It sees about 300 million euros in strategic investments and a restructuring provision of about 150 million euros through 2023.
In August, the bank estimated cost cuts of about 800 million euros over the four-year period.
ABN Amro said it aims to have a return on equity of 8 percent by 2024 and 10 percent in the longer term, although that is subject to interest rate normalization, it said.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in artificial-intelligence (AI) chips, yesterday said that small-volume production of 3-nanometer (nm) chips for a key customer is on track to start by the end of this year, dismissing speculation about delays in producing advanced chips. As Alchip is transitioning from 7-nanometer and 5-nanometer process technology to 3 nanometers, investors and shareholders have been closely monitoring whether the company is navigating through such transition smoothly. “We are proceeding well in [building] this generation [of chips]. It appears to me that no revision will be required. We have achieved success in designing
RSS