Lloyds bank axes 15000 jobs in £1.5bn revamp

LONDON — Britain's state-rescued Lloyds bank said Thursday it will axe 15,000 jobs in a drastic cost-cutting plan that will halve its international base and save £1.5 billion (1.66 billion euros, $2.4 billion) per year by 2014.LBG will "simplify the group to improve service and deliver £1.5 billion of annual savings in 2014" via measures that will include a "reduction of 15,000 roles", the company said in a statement issued after a strategic review.The major overhaul, carried out under the leadership of new chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio, will seek to "streamline our international presence, from 30 countries to less than half that number by 2014", it added.The loss-making group, which is 41-percent state-owned after a huge bailout at the height of the global financial crisis in 2008, has now slashed more than 40,000 jobs since 2009 as it looks to guide its way back to health.The majority of the job losses will be in middle management and back-office roles, such as IT and support functions, and also in its international operations.Lloyds stressed it would seek to shed staff through natural attrition and redeployment rather than redundancy. The job cuts amount to approximately 14 percent of the group's current workforce of about 106,000 people."It's important to note that these are roles not people. We have a strong record of minimising redundancies," said Horta-Osorio.He added: "We have to do this. This bank has lost money, it's losing money this year on an after-tax basis."We have to get this bank back on to its feet to support the UK economy and we have to pay taxpayers' money back."LBG suffered spectacular losses in 2008 and 2009, as bad debts rocketed in the wake of its 2008 takeover of HBOS, which was plagued by toxic or high-risk property investments.The lender bounced back into profit in 2010 after slashing bad debts, but lurched back into losses in the first quarter of 2011."Our aim is to become the best bank for customers," added Horta-Osorio, the former head of Santander UK who was parach

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