FleetBoston may cut costs, announce layoffs

BOSTON (Bloomberg) — FleetBoston Financial Corp. may reduce staff to cut costs as the U.S. economic slowdown reduces demand for credit, said a top executive of the bank. Henrique de Campos Meirelles, president for global banking at the No. 7 bank in the U.S., said FleetBoston may announce the job cuts and other cost savings after it completes an analysis of costs in coming weeks. He declined to provide more details. FleetBoston would follow in the wake of several U.S. banks that have trimmed costs as business has slowed in the biggest round of job cuts in the financial industry since 1998. Including jobs lost through mergers last year, banks and securities firms have announced about 10,000 layoffs in recent months. Meirelles said FleetBoston has set up a task force to study costs, though no decisions have been made on the cuts, or which areas might be affected. At yearend, the Boston-based company had 53,000 employees, down from 59,200 employees in 1999. The bank fired about 4,000 employees last year because of the 1999 merger between Fleet Financial Group Inc. and BankBoston Corp.