Investment Bankers Face Termination as Fees in Europe Plunge

Investment bankers in Europe are girding for a second wave of job cuts in less than a year after the euro area’s debt crisis drove fees from mergers and securities underwriting to a nine-year low.

Credit Suisse Group AG and UBS AG, Switzerland’s biggest lenders, face the most pressure to boost efficiency as that country runs ahead of others in introducing tougher capital and liquidity rules to curtail risk-taking, making some businesses unviable. The banks’ securities units had the highest costs as a proportion of revenue among a group of the 12 largest firms in Europe and the U.S. last year, Morgan Stanley analysts Hubert Lam and Huw van Steenis wrote in a May 24 note.