ING Baring Securities could be the next financial group in Asia to suffer staff cutbacks as the Netherlands-based parent moves to stem the flow of red ink in its emerging markets operations.
An internal company memo that began circulating last week in Hong Kong warned of tough measures to cut costs as much as 25 per cent, sources said.
'We are looking at numbers to identify areas where we can save costs and manage our cost base to represent the market environment in which we operate,' the company's head of corporate communications in Asia, Edward Naylor, said.
Mr Naylor would not say whether staff cuts were among the options.
The mandate to reduce costs comes as other brokerages in the region cut staff. Sun Hung Kai Investment Services confirmed it dismissed three analysts from its research team yesterday and 12 other staff, mostly back-office.
Santander Investment said it had fired 15 per cent of its workforce in Singapore as part of its plan to merge its bank and stockbroking operations. Nine Hong Kong staff were dismissed in June as part of the merger.