Standard Chartered share price jumps as leaked memo from Bill Winters shows it will cut 1,000 senior management jobs
New Standard Chartered boss Bill Winters has wasted no time in getting down to business, after he told staff the company is planning to cut a quarter – around 1,000 – of the bank's senior management roles.
The Asia-focused lender has struggled as earnings slid over the past two years years, but since Winter's arrival earlier in the summer, he has shaken up its corporate structure, introducing a new, 13-strong team to turn it into a lean, mean, money-making machine.
Investors clearly approved: shares jumped almost four per cent to 778p after Winters' memo was leaked.
A Standard Chartered spokesperson said:
Bill’s note to staff is an update on what we said we were going to do. In it, he has made it clear that kick-starting performance is a priority, and we are not standing still. We have a clear sense of our direction of travel and the key areas of focus – superior execution, targeted investments, divestment where we are not advantaged and innovation in our product and process design.
On headcount, we said previously (when we announced the management team and organisational changes in July) that there would be further personnel changes to come, as we simplify our organisational structure. We have already acted to reduce management layers, and a result will have up to 25 per cent fewer senior staff.
Since Winters' arrival, he's also set about making plans for StanChart to become the first major foreign bank to set up a subsidiary in India, the lender's third biggest market.
Winters faces pressure from shareholder to take drastic measures to turn the bank around: last month it emerged he received a £6m "golden hello" on top of his £1.15m annual salary when he arrived at the bank.