Hundreds more brokers at global trading giant Icap face losing their jobs as demand for telephone dealing continues to fall far faster than that for electronic broking.
Icap founder and chief executive Michael Spencer today refused to say how many jobs are at risk because consultations are only just starting.
He said reports that up to 300 jobs went last month were “exaggerated” but would not comment on whether at least 10% of the workforce are at risk.
But he said: “We currently employ 2000 people in global broking. We are restructuring the business. There are certain areas of the business where we have too many brokers and there are parts of the business which are non-core or not profitable, which we will exit.
"Last year global broking accounted for 30% of our global profit. It will be non-trivially less than that this year. Clients want electronic broking because it’s cheaper, more transparent and what the regulators want.”
Between the start of April and yesterday total revenues are down 19%, including the effects of strong sterling. But while electronic broking volumes are down 10%, reflecting low volatility in currency markets and lower volumes in bond trading, revenues from voice broking fell 25%.
Spencer pointed out that new areas of business based on electronic and post-trade services continued to show good growth.
