Renaissance Capital slashes global workforce

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MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Renaissance Capital, the investment bank whose holding company is in Bermuda, is cutting as much as 15 percent of its workforce as business slows, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

The jobs cuts are restricted to investment banking, said the people, who declined to be named as the news hasn’t been made public. Daria Khilenkova, a spokeswoman for RenCap in Lagos, declined to comment by phone. The reduction was reported earlier today by Russian news agency Interfax.

Renaissance, which is half-owned by Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, has been facing increased competition in Russia since OAO Sberbank, the country’s largest lender, completed the acquisition of Troika Dialog, Moscow’s oldest investment bank, in January.

VTB Capital, a unit of Russia’s second-largest lender, was the biggest organizer of domestic equity and debt deals last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. RenCap was sixth in equity and debt deals, and Troika was second, the data show.

Renaissance Group, the parent company that includes Renaissance Capital, said in September it cut 10 percent of its workforce of 1,250 to “align” costs with market conditions. The bank said on May 18 Deputy chief executive officer Andrew Cornthwaite went leave for an indeterminate period.

Standard & Poor’s on May 17 revised its outlook to “negative” from “stable” on Renaissance’s holding company in Bermuda, citing RenCap’s “weak earnings and the potentially slow divestment of its large equity holdings.”

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