Goldman Sachs is to axe up to 30 per cent of its investment bankers in Asia, as it grapples with a regional slowdown and intensifying pressure to improve returns to shareholders.
The move could mean that as many as 90 investment bankers across the region will be laid off over the next few months, according to people familiar with the bank’s plans, with the bulk of the cuts in Hong Kong and Singapore.
The cuts also mean that the New York-based bank is partially unstitching the Asian network it built up over the past 15 years, in the belief that having big teams of bankers on the ground in markets such as China and India would unlock opportunities.