Julius Baer to Cut 1,000 Jobs Following Merrill Deal

Swiss private banking group Julius Baer said Tuesday that it plans to cut up to 1,000 jobs next year to save money following its acquisition of Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s (NYSE:BAC) international wealth management business.

Baer said it will significantly reduce former Bank of America corporate overhead and other assets not essential to its growth strategy and reduce its workforce of 5,700 by 15% to 18%.

The third-biggest publicly traded Swiss bank did not say exactly where the cuts would derive from but said staff would be pulled from more than 50 locations.

The company agreed to buy the Merrill Lynch business in August for about $880 million in a move that is expected to boost its assets by about 40%. The deal is currently slated to close in the first quarter of 2013.

The changes and acquisition are expected to lead to profit growth by 2015, boosting earnings per share that year by as much as 15% when excluding integration costs.