* The French group wants to reduce its number of employees in Romania, Russia, Czech Republic and Egypt
* Sorin Popa, BRD: "We have no plans for downsizing, we will optimize through natural departures"
Société Générale announced yesterday that it would cut costs and sell assets worth 4 billion Euros, by 2013, to bolster its capital and to reassure investors over its financial situation.
The lender wants to cut costs with the investment banking division by 5% and to reach a capital adequacy rate of more than 9% by 2013. Also, the bank will spin off part of its asset management and financial services divisions.
Furthermore, Société Générale intends to cut the number of employees in Romania, Russia, Czech Republic and Egypt, as part of a process to consolidate the capital of the group, Frederic Oudea, the managing director of the bank said yesterday, quoted by Bloomberg.
Next year, Société Générale will cut 2,000 jobs at its Russian retail-banking business in 2012 and also plans to reduce staff in the Czech Republic, Romania and Egypt, Frederic Oudea said.
"The layoffs will happen in particular in the financial services and asset management sectors", he added.
BRD, the Romanian subsidiary of Société Générale, did not perform any layoffs and has no plan to cut staff, as the optimization of labor costs will come from natural departures, said Sorin Popa, deputy general manager of the bank, quoted by Mediafax.
He said: "Since the beginning of the year, we only saw natural employee departures and nothing more. We did not operate layoffs and we are not in a downsizing process. We are looking for a way to cut employee costs, but based on natural departures, not through a layoff plan".
The deputy general manager of BRD also said that natural departures are constant, a normal evolution on the market of Bucharest and Ro
