Sovereign Bancorp Inc. announced that it will cut about 1,000 jobs to reduce costs ahead of its sale to Banco Santander SA.
The cuts, roughly 10% of Sovereign's work force, follows a review of the company's operations and will take place through 2009.
Sovereign accepted Banco Santander's offer to purchase the 76% of the company it doesn't already own in October.
The offer, which initially valued that outstanding stake at $1.9 billion, has fallen by more than a third as financial stocks have declined the past two months.
