JPMorgan Plans To Ax The WaMu Suits
Up to 19,000 employees of Washington Mutual face being laid off this weekend as JPMorgan Chase turns up the synergy on its recent acquisition.
On Friday, JPMorgan Chase (nyse: JPM - news - people ) said it expects to retain the 22,000 employees who work at Washington Mutual branches and 2,000 workers in the mortgage and wealth management divisions in California, spokesman Tom Kelly told Forbes.com. The company has not yet determined the total numbers to be cut in other states, but it planning to inform all former WaMu employees of their job status by Monday.
WaMu had about 43,000 employees as of June, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Combined, Chase and WaMu have about 5,400 branches. The company said it only plans to close about 10.0%.
The bulk of the job cuts will be at the Washington Mutual headquarters in Seattle due to the overlap in operations with the current employees at JPMorgan.
JPMorgan acquired the tired thrift from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in late September for $1.9 billion. The deal excluded the assets and liabilities of the holding company and its nonbank subsidiaries. Federal regulators had seized the teetering savings and loan and then orchestrated the sale of the bulk of its assets to JPMorgan. The combined bank is the largest in the U.S. by deposits.
Earlier in the year, JPMorgan offered to buy WaMu for $8.00 per share. That was a discount to the $8.75 it traded for then, but a handsome premium to the price JPMorgan ended up paying.
Shares of JPMorgan were up 3.4%, or $1.04, to close at $31.66, in the short trading day in New York.
source: http://www.forbes.com/markets/2008/11/28/wamu-jpmorgan-jobs-markets-equity-cx_lal_1128markets19.html
