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Lloyds to make another 1660 redundant as it axes C&G
9 Jun 2009Lloyds Banking Group today said it will axe another 1660 jobs and close all 164 of its Cheltenham & Gloucester branches.
The bank has already axed nearly 3000 jobs since April, including 510 last week, after the disastrous merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS led to a multi-billion pound bailout by the taxpayer.
Unions branded the latest round of job losses “disgusting” and complained about “death by a thousand cuts” at the part-nationalised bank. They urged Lloyds to “come clean” about the scale of its restructuring programme.
Derek Simpson, Unite joint general-secretary, said: “This move by Lloyds will rip the heart out of hundreds of local communities up and down the country.
“UK taxpayers have not poured billions of pounds into this organisation just to see it sack thousands of hard-working people.
“This is truly a dark day for the financial services sector in this country.”
But the news was welcomed in the City and Lloyds shares rose 1.7p to 62.8p.
David Buik of BGC Partners said: “The closing of these C&G branches makes huge economic sense even though the human story is unpalatable.”
Lloyds will close all its C&G branches in November with the loss of 928 jobs although the brand will survive for mortgage and savings products. A further 732 jobs will be lost in other areas of the retail banking business such as mortgage lending and personal loans.
News of the sackings comes only a day after the bank started to pay back loans from the Government following its £4 billion fundraising through the sale of shares to investors.
C&G can trace its origins back to 1850 and now has a mortgage book of £94.6 billion and savings balances of £11.6 billion.
A Lloyds spokesman insisted it was “a powerful and valuable brand” but the disappearance of the name is another blow to the High Street.
It came just weeks after Spanish bank Santander said it was axing the Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford& Bingley names and rebranding them Santander.
Lloyds completed the takeover of Halifax and Bank of Scotland owner HBOS in January with the backing of Prime Minister Gordon Brown but the deal immediately turned sour when it reported some £10 billion of losses.
The deal has already cost Lloyds chairman Sir Victor Blank his job and chief executive Eric Daniels remains under pressure from shareholders including the Government.
Reader views (7)
Having dealt with the dreadfull C&G on many ocassions in the past, can't say I feel any sympathy for any of the staff.
Over a 3 year period, every single person I spoke to was rude, vile and arrogant.
- Staker, London, SW8, 09/06/2009 18:00
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Here's hoping the house of lords deal a severe blow to the likes of Lloyds TSB - when the bank penalty charges test case, comes before the house of lords on the 22nd June this year. Unless the house of lords, think it fair for MPs to fiddle their expenses; but the public must not be able to reclaim their bank charges.
- Mike, Herts, 09/06/2009 17:03
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Jon,
Better still get rid of mortgage brokers altogether. Large commissions for usually doing very little. Shame the housing slump didn't last a lot longer.
- Mark, South-East London, 09/06/2009 15:31
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Well what a surprise, but we can't be cutting jobs in Scotland now, can we?
- Carl, London, 09/06/2009 15:21
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The local Essex paper had a headline today 'Jobs despair' in Colchester. The closing of our branch of C & G will just add to the queues of well-educated people competing for any decent job they can find in this area.
The options here are: fork out thousands per year & spend hours per day for the hell of commuting to London for work - or try & find a local job- with an average salary of £15k, which is not survivable-on.
People have skills & education- but can't find jobs to match them- not in their local area anyway.
- Suzyq, Colchester, 09/06/2009 14:33
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Dear Mortgage Broker, yep, great idea chuck people out on the dole to save your own job. How about you employ someone suitably qualified who has been sacked from C&G?
- Jon, London, 09/06/2009 13:13
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You dont need high street branches costing hundreds of thousands of pounds when you can distribute mortgage products by qualified independent brokers. As a broker, we have done alot of business with C&G and they have great products. Banks need to cut costs to survive and increase profit margins and HBOS have a huge network of branches so why duplicate when they are one bank now?
- Mortgage Broker N3, London, England, 09/06/2009 12:12
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