Bankers facing new jobs cull

A NEW round of City job cuts will be unveiled this week by German investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, according to insiders. Hundreds of jobs are to go at the bank, which is expected to wield the axe as early as Monday or Tuesday.

Bankers across the board will be hit - from junior research staff to £1m-a-year deal-makers and managing directors.

The move comes as Abbey National, the UK's fifth largest retail bank, prepares to axe thousands of staff in a massive cost-cutting drive.

DKW's jobs cull is its biggest since April, when it merged its equity and debt operations with the loss of 200 staff. The cuts are the latest to strike investment banks in the City, which have been hard hit by the virtual disappearance of lucrative mergers and acquisitions deals.

As many as 25,000 people have lost their jobs in the Square Mile so far this year, according to some estimates.

One source at DKW said staff had been uncertain about the future for some time. 'We've been waiting for something to happen for ages. I've just been keeping my head down and trying to get on with my job,' he said.

DKW employs about 3,000 staff in London. It is owned by Dresdner Bank, which in turn is owned by Europe's largest insurer, Allianz.

Bernd Fahrholz, chairman of Dresdner, said at the end of July that 3,000 jobs would be lost across Dresdner Bank as part of cost-cutting measures expected to be finalised by the end of this month. Reports this weekend said the bank also planned to fold its US corporate lending business and shut its Latin American operation.

The mood at DKW is a far cry from last year before the takeover by Allianz. Staff had been hoping for a stock market flotation when they would have been able to cash in lucrative share options.

But Allianz scrapped the float in July last year and the suspicion in the City is that it would sell DKW if it could find a buyer. DKW declined to comment.