It has been several months since CCF leaders announced that a restructuring plan was being prepared. However, bank employees perhaps did not expect it to be so large. During a works council held on Wednesday, December 4, management announced the planned elimination of 84 agencies out of the 235 in the group and a safeguard plan for employment concerning approximately 1,250 people out of the 3,400. bank employees. The closures will take into account several criteria, such as the size of the agencies, the territorial coverage and their profitability potential. Parisian agencies will be affected by 30% of closures, a proportion identical to that concerning all other large cities, such as Marseilles or Nantes.
My Money Group, the head structure of the CCF belonging to the Cerberus fund, is also concerned. Its workforce should increase from 490 people today to 320 after this plan, or 160 departures, mainly concerning support functions. “Even if we will ensure that people who wish and can are reclassified, there will be forced departures of the CCF,” says a union delegate. In total, around 1,410 people from the enlarged group are therefore affected out of the 3,910 it includes.
“After a stabilization phase, field meetings and detailed analyses, the group clarified its strategic vision to meet its ambition to become the benchmark human-sized wealth bank on the French market and to reconnect with competitiveness.», Explains a spokesperson for the bank. This clarification therefore involves reducing the size of the structure by a third. The bank wants, with this rationalization of its costs, “achieve balance in 2026 and present a positive result in 2027”, she indicated to L'Agefi. If the intention is laudable, “this plan is colossal in scale», deplores a staff representative.
In 2021, when the takeover of the HSBC France network was announced by the Cerberus fund, for which the British bank had to write a check for 1.6 billion euros, it was precisely this type of decision that the employees feared.
Internal inquiries
According to management, the operation of these points of sale will be very different from what it is today. The CCF plans to award agency directors “increased room for maneuver to manage the commercial activity and financial performance of their agency, to shorten decision-making circuits and to strengthen the role of advisors», Specifies a spokesperson. These statements confirm those made by Niccolo Ubertalli in L'Agefi last July. “But it remains a vision of a strategic plan. There is now practice, and it is very different», assures a trade unionist.
Just hours after being informed of the backup plan, some employees are worried about the future of the structure. “Is it possible for a traditional bank to survive with a network of only 150 branches? », they ask themselves internally. This question is legitimate, as banks, even the largest in Europe, seek to develop to reach critical size. However, it is difficult to compare between large universal banks and more specialized entities. “The situation is completely different depending on the professions in question. It is possible for a network bank to be very profitable, even with a limited number of branches.declared to L'Agefi very recently a director of a major French bank.
It remains to be seen what means will be implemented by the CCF to achieve a “sustainable growth”, as he aspires to do. For the moment, a plan of 100 million euros of investments over two years has been initiated on the technological side of the bank and training. However, the structure does not communicate on what the backup plan could cost it. Discussions on this subject could last until April 2025, for departure waves which could take place in 2025 and 2026. Cerberus had undertaken not to fire anyone from the bank for one year after final finalization of the The sale transaction with HSBC which took place on January 1, 2024. The deadline will be met, but only just.
