Morgan Stanley just announced fourth-quarter earnings, and it is providing detail to investors on a cost-saving plan called Project Streamline.
During a conference call, CEO James Gorman uttered a sentence that will most likely make the bank's staff shudder.
"Too many employees based in high-cost centers are doing work that can sensibly be done in lower-cost centers," he said. "Now is the time to tackle head-on our infrastructure costs."
The mention of "lower-cost centers" most likely means the bank is looking to shift jobs overseas or to low-cost locations in the US.
His comments echo a line in his presentation, where there is a reference to optimizing the bank's location strategy.
Morgan Stanley would not be the first bank to pull such a move.
Goldman Sachs has moved thousands of jobs to places such as Salt Lake City, while Deutsche Bank has a big office in Jacksonville, Florida.
The bank has also found other ways to cut costs, slashing 25% of its fixed-income workforce in recent months.
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