French bank SocGen plans to cut 1,600 jobs in bid to buoy profits

Societe Generale, France's third-largest bank, unveiled on Tuesday a plan to cut 1,600 jobs, mainly at its corporate and investment banking arm, in a bid to buoy profitability after last year's poor performance. SocGen had announced it would cut 500 million euros ($563 million) in costs at its corporate and investment banking in early February after its fourth quarter results were hit by a steep market downturn, which in turn forced it to lower both profitability and revenue growth targets.

The bank will cut 750 jobs in France, where all the redundancies will be made on a voluntary basis. The other job cuts will be carried out abroad, mainly in New York and London, where the bank may fire people.

($1 = 0.8881 euros) (Reporting by Inti Landauro and Matthieu Protard; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)