Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley posted a $9.4 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2007—the company’s first quarterly loss in its history—due to mortgage-related debt.

The bank announced late this month that it was cutting 1,000 jobs in its U.S. wealth-management unit, primarily back-office positions in technology, operations, and support. In the fall of 2007, Morgan Stanley eliminated 600 mortgage-related jobs in the United States and Europe, and 300 from its fixed-income, equity, and investment-banking groups.

Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs reported $3.2 billion in fourth-quarter earnings, avoiding many of the other banks’ mortgage-related losses.

Goldman Sachs says that its annual review, based on individual performances and not on current Wall Street conditions, targets the bottom-performing 5 percent of its workforce, or about 1,500 employees, for dismissal.

Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch announced $9.8 billion in losses for 2007’s fourth quarter, its second consecutive quarterly loss due to mortgage-related debt. The company also announced that it was getting a $6.6 billion cash infusion from the Korean Investment Corp. and the Kuwait Investment Authority to strengthen its balance sheet.

Recent reports indicate that Merrill has begun a layoff of some 1,600 employees, but no official announcement has been made. Merrill’s chief executive Stanley O’Neal resigned in November and was replaced by John Thain, who had been in charge of the New York Stock Exchange.

Lehman Brothers
Lehman had a $3.5 billion write-down from mortgage-related losses in the fourth quarter, but was able to offset many of those losses with investment-management fees and equity-trading gains.

Lehman recently announced that it was getting rid of its wholesale-mortgage-lending business, which employed 1,300 people, on top of an earlier elimination of about 2,500 jobs from its broader mortgage business.

Bear Stearns
Bear Stearns announced $1.9 billion in losses in its fiscal fourth quarter due to mortgage-related write-downs, the first quarterly loss in the company’s history.

The bank has announced approximately 1,500 layoffs since last August—nearly 10 percent of its total staff. Most of the cuts have come from the bank’s mortgage-related and trading divisions, including 600 positions from its mortgage-origination unit and 300 from its equity-trading business. One person out of a job: James Cayne, who announced on January 8 that he was stepping down as C.E.O.

For more on how bankers are coping with these layoffs, please read "High Anxiety."