Barclays-ABN merger to shower jobs

London: British banking giant Barclays will add thousands of new employees to its India headcount following the takeover of its Dutch rival ABN AMRO in a cash and stock deal, valued at over 91 billion dollars.

The deal, the biggest ever M&A in the financial services space, would create the largest institutional asset manager and the world's eighth largest wealth manager but will result in over 12,000 job cuts at the two banks' operations across the world.

However, India will be a net gainer in terms of jobs as well as expanded operations of the two banks.

While the number of new jobs have not been disclosed, sources close to the development pegged the figure at anywhere between 8,000 and 10,000.

"Part of the expected staff reduction will be through establishing shared services and off-shoring those positions to low cost locations, such as India, where new staff will be recruited at ABN AMRO's existing ACES operations," ABN AMRO and Barclays said in a joint statement.

The duo said they have identified the possibility of rationalising the number of staff of the combined group through a combination of natural attrition, off-shoring and outsourcing as well as redundancies.

While the two banks were silent on the exact employee additions in India, sources said that a majority of the new jobs would be moved to a low cost location like India.

Besides, the two banks will go ahead with their previously announced hiring plans as they see India as a huge opportunity going forward.

Barclays Plc, Britain's third-largest bank, agreed Monday morning to merge ABN AMRO Holding NV with itself and the proposed merger would be implemented through an exchange offer pursuant to which ABN AMRO ordinary shareholders would receive 3.225 ordinary shares in Barclays (new Barclays shares) for each existing ABN AMRO ordinary share.

Under the terms of the offer, Barclays' existing ordinary shareholders would own approximately 52 per cent and ABN AMRO existing ordinary shareholders would own approximately 48 per cent of the combined group.