Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the securities firm that filed for bankruptcy two weeks ago, will eliminate 750 jobs in its European fixed income and personal investment management units after talks to find a buyer failed.
The cuts, which will fall mainly in fixed income, are effective today, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Lehman's bankruptcy administrator in the U.K., said in a statement on its Web site. The bank employed about 4,500 staff in London's Canary Wharf.
The job losses will add to the 130,000 positions financial firms worldwide have eliminated in the past year as global credit markets collapsed. PwC had been trying to sell the fixed income business, and save some of the unit's jobs, after Japan's Nomura Holdings Inc. agreed to buy the European investment banking and equities units last week.
``It is extremely disappointing that despite exhausting all avenues these jobs could not be saved,'' PwC partner Tony Lomas said in the statement. ``We continue to be focused on maximizing the value of recoveries for creditors, whilst minimizing the impact on other stakeholders as much as possible.''
London alone will suffer almost 20,000 job reductions in 2008 and 2009, according to estimates from the London-based Centre for Economics and Business Research.
Nomura, Japan's biggest securities firm, agreed to buy Lehman's Asian-Pacific unit. London-based Barclays Plc purchased Lehman's U.S. investment banking unit for $250 million.
Lehman, once the fourth-biggest U.S. securities firm, filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 15 after losing 94 percent of its market value this year, succumbing to the subprime mortgage crisis it helped to create.
PwC is seeking to recoup about $8 billion in cash the U.S. parent allegedly withheld before it filed for bankruptcy. The firm is seeking to recover the cash to pay creditors in Europe.
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