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KCG said to eliminate 10% of staff, shut two offices in Asia

Bloomberg Published on Tue, May 23, 2017 / 8:29 AM GMT+8

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NEW YORK (May 23): Trading firm KCG Holdings Inc., which Virtu Financial Inc. is buying for more than US$1.3 billion ($1.8 billion), is eliminating 10% of its staff and shutting offices in Singapore and Mumbai, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The company also will also stop trading currencies for clients and withdraw almost entirely from making markets in European exchange-traded funds, according to the person, who asked not to be identified discussing a private matter. KCG will cut about 100 jobs by the end of this week, the person said. Sophie Sohn, a spokeswoman for New York-based KCG, declined to comment.

More cuts could be coming. Its planned acquirer, Virtu, has only one-sixth as many employees, relying more heavily on automation. “We have a leaner firm in terms of people,” Virtu Chief Executive Officer Doug Cifu said on Bloomberg TV when the takeover was announced in April. “They have a lot more people than we do. We will look at that.”