American Express : Hiring freeze, but no layoffs

American Express (NYSE:AXP) will avoid layoffs this year, says CEO Steve Squeri, but nevertheless needs to reduce costs. To that end, he's put in place a hiring freeze.

In other items, he notes that two-thirds of the company's customer-service teams (that's 60K people) now work from home vs. 10% a couple of weeks ago.

Squeri: "In two weeks, we have completely transformed our global servicing operations, going from a brick-and-mortar, traditional call-center environment to a totally distributed, home-based servicing one."

Shares and down more than 35% from a month ago.

Baltimore : Legg Mason Cuts 12% of Staff in Revamp as Peltz Joins Board

Legg Mason Inc. has laid off about 120 employees and restructured its executive team just days after activist investor Nelson Peltz struck a deal with the company to claim seats on its board of directors. 

About 12 percent of the company's 1,000 corporate employees were laid off, the Baltimore-based money manager announced late Thursday. Of that 12 percent, 9.7 percent of the cuts came at Legg Mason's U.S. locations in Baltimore and Stamford, New York.

(Bloomberg) -- Legg Mason Inc. is cutting 120 people, or about 12% of staff, and streamlining its executive committee just days after adding investor Nelson Peltz to its board.

The cost-cutting steps are “critical to our ongoing growth,” Joseph Sullivan, chief executive officer of the Baltimore-based asset manager, said in a memo to staff Thursday.

Asset managers have taken aim at their employee ranks as they face unprecedented pressure on fees and substantial investments in technology. In recent months, BlackRock Inc., State Street Corp. and AQR Capital Management have announced staff reductions. Legg Mason announced reorganization plans in February, including unspecified job cuts.

At Legg Mason, almost 100 of the cuts will be staff in the U.S., according to Mary Athridge, a company spokeswoman. The rest will come from offices in Europe and Asia.

The executive committee reporting to Sullivan will be consolidated from eight to four members: Terry Johnson, who will oversee marketing and distribution; Patty Lattin, head of human resources and facilities; Tom Merchant, general counsel and head of risk management; and Pete Nachtwey, chief financial officer. Departing executives include Fran Cashman, Tom Hoops, John Kenney and Ursula Schliessler.

Peltz and two other representatives of his Trian Fund Management will join Legg Mason’s board after the $10 billion New York-based hedge fund acquired a 4.5% stake, the company announced Tuesday.

Peltz said then that he had three top priorities: “significantly reducing costs, driving revenue growth organically and through acquisition, and increasing profitability.”

The investor previously served on Legg Mason’s board from 2009 to 2014, when Sullivan was named as CEO and the firm went on an acquisition spree. Legg Mason is also adding two more independent board members as it expands the number of directors to 12 from 10.

Legg Mason fell 0.6% to $36.90 Thursday in New York, before the job cuts were announced. The shares have gained almost 45% this year, after losing 37% in 2018.

Kraft Heinz cuts 200 more white-collar jobs

Kraft Heinz today cut about 200 salaried workers across the U.S. and Canada as part of its continued business unit consolidation, dismissals that included white-collar workers at its headquarters in Chicago and Pittsburgh.

Company spokesman Michael Mullen said the layoffs affected less than 1 percent of the company's workforce and will help Kraft Heinz "reinvest in our brands and our business in ways that benefit our consumers."

The mass firing comes about a month after the packaged-foods company pulled its $143 billion bid to buy Anglo-Dutch consumer-products company Unilever after its target rebuffed its offer and its approach became public. Kraft Heinz said it didn't want to engage in a hostile takeover battle.

The job cuts and reorganization also come on the heels on the company's announcement that it planned to slash an additional $200 million in annual expenses, on top of the $1.5 billion Kraft Heinz targeted after Heinz merged with Kraft in 2015.

Since that merger, orchestrated by Brazilian private-equity firm 3G Capital and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, the company has shuttered factories and fired thousands of workers in order to reduce expenses and boost margins.

The company's best-in-class operating margin was 23 percent in the fourth quarter, up from 18 percent a year earlier. Revenue fell 3.7 percent to $6.85 billion.

Struggling to grow sales of its old-line staples such as Heinz ketchup and Kraft cheese, the company turned its attention to acquisitions, submitting an unsolicited bid for Unilever. But there was pushback from the start, according to Bloomberg. A major point of concern of a potential Kraft Heinz takeover of Unilever, particularly in Europe, was whether its focus on "brands with purpose" would survive the relentless cost cutting that is the hallmark of 3G, the publication reported.

After the deal fell apart, Kraft Heinz said it is investing $200 million in an expanded corporate social responsibility program that includes a pledge to donate 1 billion meals to people in need by 2021, improve the sustainability of its supply chain and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent.

Kraft Heinz CEO Bernardo Hees told Bloomberg the additional cost cuts made investing in the sustainability program possible.

Employees who were fired were offered "substantial severance packages" and outplacement services, Mullen said.

Illinois: Sears cuts 130 corporate jobs

Sears Holdings has laid off 130 people, mostly at its Hoffman Estates headquarters, as part of a larger cost-cutting effort designed to save the money-losing company $1 billion this year.

The jobs were cut from various business units and roles, according to Sears spokesman Chris Brathwaite.

He declined to comment on whether more layoffs will follow but confirmed that more changes are coming.

Sears will "continue to take decisive actions to restructure our operations," Brathwaite said, and will continue "to analyze our operating model for greater efficiency beyond today's actions." That means "simplifying" the company structure and bringing "greater consolidation" to both Kmart and Sears, he said.

"This activity is necessary to create a more nimble operating structure capable of driving the company's strategic transformation forward," Lampert wrote in the email obtained by Business Insider. "We highly value all of our associates and do not take these decisions lightly."

Brathwaite declined to specify the number of corporate workers who remain employed at Sears headquarters, but he said it remains above the 4,250 people it needs to maintain to keep its tax breaks under the state EDGE program. Under its 2011 agreement with the state, Sears received 15 years in property tax breaks and state income tax credits worth $15 million a year for a decade.

Sears laid off 115 workers in early 2015 and another 250 last year.