US brokerage Bear Stearns plan to cut 800 jobs, including up to 30 in Dublin, will cost the top Wall Street firm about $57 million in severance charges, according to a regulatory filing by the company today.
Bear Stearns, which said yesterday it was cutting about 7 per cent of its 11,147-strong work force, said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that the cuts would save $120 million a year. The staff reductions are part of a profit margin improvement plan the company started more than a year ago.
Bear Stearns, along with rivals such as Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse First Boston, is shedding staff as Wall Street profits tumble amid weak economic conditions.
Bear Stearns last month reported a 26 per cent decline in third-quarter profit and signaled it would end the year with fewer employees. It also said yesterday that its top executives had agreed to cut some parts of their pay by 50 per cent.
The company's shares were off 51 cents at $52.74 in trading on the New York Stock Exchange.