MORE than 30 equities traders and research staff at HSBC have offered themselves up for redundancy as part of a long-running series of job cuts at the global investment bank.

HSBC has, however, denied widespread City reports that a number have already walked out. The redundancies come within days of the bank announcing a disappointing round of bonuses for some staff for 2003, but sources claim this is a coincidence.

Last September, after the arrival in the spring of John Studzinski as co-head of corporate investment banking and markets, HSBC announced a review of the business and possible redundancies.

Since then several tranches of staff have gone. In the autumn about 50 went in London, and another 60 job losses took place in January in Asia.

Some of these were compulsory. Staff were told at the end of the year that no further voluntary redundancies would be accepted. But after bonuses were announced last week, the offer was renewed.

“We reopened the window. A small number of people have put their hands up. Their requests are being considered,” a source at the bank said.

It is understood they number less than three dozen. A spokesman for HSBC said: “We don’t expect any further large-scale redundancies in our cash equities business.”

HSBC has refused to discuss bonus payments for last year, but reports suggested widespread disappointment within equities. There was similar disquiet over bonus levels announced last year and in 2002.

When the review of the business was started, HSBC employed 1,450 people worldwide. HSBC has set a target to reduce this to 1,000 but has not specified a date by which to do this.

The equities business is being folded into the other trading operations, and the bank intends to move away from a model by which it relies on commission from clients to one whereby it makes more use of its huge balance sheet to take positions itself in the market.

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