Staff at Blue Oar's stockbroking arm were warned today that they could face the chop.

Blue Oar Securities, which has around 75 employees, said it will be making redundancies as part of a cost-cutting drive, although it is not yet known how many staff will go.

It came as, the broker admitted it dived into the red last year.

Its shares dropped 1/2p to 31/2p as the group predicted a “significant loss” for 2008 and said trading in the final six months of last year had been hard hit by a drop-off in revenues from its private-client stockbroking division. It said everything is up for sale except wealth management arm Rowan Dartington.

Blue Oar also said it believed the bid by its former management for Blue Oar Securities had failed to get off the ground.

Meanwhile, investment bank Close Brothers delivered a strong performance from its securities arms, Winterflood and Mako. Although its asset management and corporate finance divisions have been hit, it expects a “satisfactory” performance for the six months to end-January.