S.C.H. Plans To Axe 3,000 Jobs At British Bank Abbey

LONDON, Aug 23 (AFP) - Spanish bank Santander Central Hispano (SCH) announced Monday it would axe about 3,000 jobs at British bank Abbey National if its multi-billion-pound bid for the bank is approved.
SCH chairman Emilio Botin said in a statement that the job cuts, representing 11.5 percent of Abbey's 26,000-strong workforce, were necessary to achieve 450-million-euro (550-million-dollar) cost savings targeted by the Spanish bank.
SCH has had a bid worth 8.9 billion pounds (13.5 billion euros, 16.4 billion dollars) for Abbey accepted by the British bank's board.
The European Commission was expected to conclude its preliminary investigation into the bid on competition grounds by September 17.
A deal between Abbey and SCH would create the fourth-biggest bank in Europe by market capitalisation -- behind HSBC, the Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS -- and the eighth-biggest worldwide.