En faisant des fouilles archéologiques sur mon disque dur je suis retombé sur une de mes blagues préférée (pour les plus anciens je sais l'ai déjà postée mais c'était sur l'ancien forum)
JP Morgan TO CUT WORKFORCE 120 PERCENT
NEW YORK , N.Y.
JPMorgan will reduce its workforce by an unprecedented 120 percent by the end of 2005, believed to be the first time a major corporation has laid off more employees than it actually has.
JPM stock soared more than 12 points on the news. The reduction decision, announced Wednesday, came after a year-long internal review of cost-cutting procedures, said J P Morgan Chairman and chief executive, William Harrison. The initial report concluded the company would save $1.2 billion by eliminating 20 percent of its 108,000 employees.
>From there, said Harrison , "it didn't take a genius to figure out that if we cut 40 percent of our workforce, we'd save $2.4 billion, and if we cut 100 percent of our workforce, we'd save $6 billion. But then we thought, why stop there? Let's cut another 20 percent and save $7 billion.
"We believe in increasing shareholder value, and we believe that by decreasing expenditures, we enhance our competitive cost position and our bottom line," he added.
Harrison plans to achieve the 100 percent internal reduction through layoffs, attrition and early retirement packages. To achieve the 20 percent in external reductions, the company plans to involuntarily downsize 22,000 non-Morgan employees who presently work for other banks.
"We pretty much picked them out of a hat but did look for those ex Jardine Flemiing people we got rid of earlier," said Harrison .
Among firms JPM has picked as "External Reduction Targets," or ERTs, are Goldman Sachs, UBS, CSFB, Citigroup and also foreign banks such as HNB and DFCC former partners in a old herritage Jardine Fleming operation Sri Lanka . JPM's plan presents a "win-win" for the company and ERTs, said Harrison, as any savings by ERTs would be passed on to JPM, while the ERTs themselves would benefit by the increase in stock price that usually accompanies personnel cutback announcements.
"We're also hoping that since, over the years, we've been really helpful to a lot of companies, they'll do this for us kind of as a favor," said Harrison .
Legally, pink slips sent out by JP Morgan would have no standing at ERTs unless those companies agreed. While executives at ERTs declined to comment, many employees at those companies said they were not inclined to cooperate.
This is ridiculous. I don't work for J P Morgan anymore. They can't fire me, said an employee at Goldman who declined to be identified.
Reactions like that, replied Harrison , "are not very sporting."
Inspiration for J P Morgan's plan came from previous cutback initiatives, said company officials. In January of 1998, for instance, the company announced it would trim 18,000 jobs over two years. However, just a year later, JP Morgan said it had already reached its quota. "We were quite surprised at the number of employees willing to leave JP Morgan in such a hurry, and we decided to build on that," Harrison said.
In early rounds we specifically targetted those Jardine Fleming people, an investment bank Chase bought in Asia . By pushing out Jardine Fleming people we bought at a high cost earlier, we believe we are dramatically increasing shareholder value, though shareholders seem to disagree with the stock price falling. Queries from analyst's on why Morgan sold out of operations in Sri Lanka and Pakistan at rock bottom price just before these markets took off and became the best performing in the world were not answered.
"We got rid of almost all of those Jardine Fleming People but some are still hiding around pretending to be pro Morgan" With a 120% cut we are guaranteed we can be finally be rid of all of them Harrison said.
Analysts credited Harrison short-term vision, noting that the announcement had the desired effect of immediately increasing Morgan's share value. However, the long-term ramifications could be detrimental, said Bear Stearns analyst Beldon McInty.
"It's a little early to tell, but by eliminating all its employees, JP Morgan may jeopardize its market position and could, at least theoretically, cease to exist," said McInty.
Harrison , however, urged patience: "To my knowledge, this hasn't been done before, so let's just wait and see what happens."
Perfection spells paralysis
(Winston Churchill)