Johannesburg - HSBC Securities South Africa will cut jobs after declining stock markets reduced demand for its stockbroking services and a drop in the number of takeovers slashed the market for advisory services.
The unit of the world's third-largest bank would eliminate staff in all four of its local businesses, which employed almost 250 people, said Andrew Moir, HSBC's chief operating officer. Determining how many jobs would be cut might take more than a month, he said.
"We have to keep revising our business model," Moir said.
"There are going to be areas where restructuring is necessary.'
A decline in stock prices and lower demand for equities has cut commissions earned by all of South Africa's stockbrokers by 30 percent in the past year.
At the same time, the value of mergers and acquisitions in Africa's largest economy fell by more than half to R205.6 billion, slashing fees earned by advisers.
HSBC has already trimmed its staff in South Africa, cutting eight jobs and closing its institutional fund management business last month.
The company's remaining units are a stockbroker focusing on institutional investors, a research unit, a corporate finance team and a fund manager for wealthy individuals.
ING Groep, CLSA Emerging Markets and Credit Suisse First Boston, which flooded into South Africa after 1994, have all trimmed staff as competition, fewer-than-expected sales of state assets and a decline in stock markets crimped earnings.