(Reuters) – Australian financial planner AMP Ltd is centralising some business services in an effort to become “simpler”, the company said on Wednesday, following a media report that it planned to cut up to a fifth of some of its workforce.
The changes to the 160-year-old company follow years of scandal, with AMP this month putting under review all its assets, setting in motion a potential sale or break-up.
“AMP has made changes to its teams that will centralise some business services,” a representative told Reuters, without elaborating on the implications for jobs.
The changes would lead to layoffs as high as 20% in some business units, the Australian Financial Review said, citing a company source.
The 2019 annual report shows AMP has about 6,500 employees.
The veteran wealth manager recently ceded its position as the country’s largest to rival IOOF Ltd, which plans to buy MLC, the advice arm of National Australia Bank Ltd.
(Reporting by Nikhil Kurian Nainan and Aditya Munjuluru in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Byron Kaye in Sydney; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
