Friday, Aug 22, 2008
Bank gives up on estate agents
guardian.co.uk: HBOS shuts 53 Halifax estate agency branches
HBOS today took a knife to its Halifax estate agency chain, cutting 53 branches and at least 100 jobs.
The bank, which saw its profits plunge by 70% in the first half of this year, will also relocate around 450 staff affected by the move to other posts.
Analysts said the cuts would be the first of many after a year in which Halifax has become one of the British banks worst affected by the credit crunch.
Chief executive Andy Hornby has already said he is considering "selective asset disposals" after he predicted a gloomy outlook for the next 18 months, when he expects house prices to fall by 18%.
Posted by plato @ 06:47 PM (269 views) Add Comment
2 Comments
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1. str 2007 said...
Andy Horby is Chief Exec of a large company and in his specific sector, to which he should be expert of experts, he's only just dealing with the slowing market which lets face it even for an optimist the signals should have been quite clear 9 months ago.
Secondly he's predicting an 18% fall. assuming he's using the Halifax figures, with a current 11.2% fall, I would suggest 18% fall in total is wildy optimistic. I suppose that's vested interest spin for you.
I wonder what his real thoughts are on the size of the falls ?
Maybe he'll start using the governments figures when the Halifax ones reach 18%.
No doubt the Government will have found an anomily in theirs by then and withdrawn those from publication aswell.
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