NEW YORK - Salomon Smith Barney carried out part of a broader cost-cutting program at Citigroup Thursday, telling 100 staffers of its equity sales and derivatives trading groups that their jobs had been eliminated. CNBC reported that the layoffs included a number of senior executives - those with the managing director title.
The investment banking unit of Citigroup has been paring staff since earlier this year, and a spokeswoman said Thursday that the cuts were part of that effort and not unexpected. Indeed, last month Citi said it would eliminate 3,500 jobs in its investment banking operations to account for a sharp slowdown this year in deals and other business activities. That would raise the total number of cuts at Citi so far this year to over 4,000.
Separately, Thursday Standard & Poors upgraded Salomon Smith Barney to AA minus from A along with several other business units, saying the company had made progress on integration since the Traveler's Group merger in 1998.
