Union details BNP's French job cuts in investment banking

PARIS (Reuters) - BNP Paribas's plan to cut over 10 percent of its investment banking jobs in France will affect IT and operations staff along with corporate trade and treasury, financing, advisory and global markets, among others, the CGT union said. BNP Paribas announced earlier in April a voluntary redundancy plan that calls for up to 675 job cuts at its corporate and institutional bank (CIB) in France which employs 6,000 staff. The bank said in February it planned to save more than 1 billion euros by 2019 to boost profitability and help to mitigate the impact of rising regulatory and compliance costs in its corporate and institutional banking division. "The employees affected by the plan would be faced with the choice to either leave the company or to accept 'mobility' with a potential cut in remuneration," the CGT union said on its website following a meeting with the bank's management on May 3. BNP Paribas' investment bank, like many of its rivals, showed the impact of weak investor demand in the first quarter, with pretax income down 54.5 percent and revenue down 18.9 percent. Barclays analysts said BNP Paribas had suffered more than most from the slowdown in capital markets activity. They said BNP's first quarter revenue in equities and advisory was down 41 percent, compared to a 20 percent fall among global peers. CGT union provided a breakdown of 602 jobs affected by the plan. BNP Paribas declined to comment on the breakdown. (Reporting by Maya Nikolaeva; Editing by Andrew Callus and Elaine Hardcastle)