Job cuts loom at Intesa Sanpaolo
Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s biggest retail bank, stuck to its plan to pay a dividend for 2011 yesterday as it announced deeper than expected job cuts that will further trim costs in the face of the sovereign debt crisis. Reporting a 29 per cent quarterly fall in net income due to a €593m writedown on Greek debt and trading losses, chief executive Corrado Passera said he had reached a deal with unions for 5,000 job cuts by the end of 2013, up from 3,000 cuts announced in April. For those cuts, Intesa booked €471m of restructuring charges. Staff redeployments, previously estimated at 5,000, will now be reduced to 3,000.