Bank of China (BOC) International (Holdings) Ltd., the investment-banking arm of China's biggest foreign-currency lender, fired 5 percent of its employees following a stock market fall and slump in advisory work, said a company executive who declined to be identified.
BOC International fired about 30 workers in Hong Kong and about 10 on China's mainland. The firings are expected to cut the company's payroll costs by about 20 percent, the executive said.
"Due to changes in market conditions and in line with our company's strategy to seek more business opportunities in the future, we rationalized our team's size today," said Melody Wang, a Hong Kong-based spokeswoman at BOC International, who declined to disclose the number of staff affected.
The cuts will involve project finance unit BOCI Capital, Web brokerages CSFBdirect and BOCI Online, retail securities and the investment-banking department, the executive said.
The company's revenue will rise this year from underwriting fees gained from the US$2.7 billion sale of Hong Kong affiliate BOC Hong Kong (Holdings) Ltd. but the executive said profit is expected to fall this year.
(Shanghai Daily December 7, 2002)
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