300 Satyam employees(Merrill Lynch project) join BankofAmerica

Even as most of the 50,000-odd employees at Satyam Computer Services remain concerned about job and pay cuts, 250 to 300 employees working on the Merrill Lynch project have accepted an offer from Bank of America (BofA), the bank that bought the sub-prime meltdown-hit investment bank in September last year.

The first known instance of what is known as “rebadging”, these employees will join the BofA office at Hitec City between April 2 and 8. They have been given salary raises of around 10 per cent and a bonus depending on their skill sets (Rs 1 lakh in some cases). “The bonus will be given after about 45 days of joining,” said an associate.

Most of the employees on the Merrill Lynch project work from Satyam’s Bahadurpally office. Their work is to provide infrastructure support and handle the database of the financial management and advisory firm.

BankOfAmerica withdraws offers from H-1B grads

Bank of America has become the first U.S. bank to withdraw job offers made to foreign M.B.A. students graduating from U.S. business schools this summer, according to The Financial Times. The reason, the newspaper said, is that the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program prevents financial institutions that have received bailout money from applying for H1-B visas for highly skilled immigrants if they have recently made US workers redundant.

“Recent changes in legislation made it necessary for Bank of America to rescind job offers it had made to students requiring H-1B sponsorship,” a Bank of America spokesman told the newspaper.

Officials demand more BofA bonus info

New York state's top legal officer and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank demanded Monday that Bank of America Corp provide more details on $6.9 billion in bonuses paid in 2008, including $3.6 billion at the former Merrill Lynch & Co.

The billions of dollars paid to executives is a controversial issue in the recession, and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has been putting pressure for months on the banks that received U.S. government money to stay afloat.

A legal tussle between Cuomo's office and the bank has wound up in state court, with Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) telling a judge it would suffer "grave harm" if forced to reveal bonus data, citing concerns over competitors poaching staff and privacy.

Merrill Lynch to shift Satyam contracts to TCS

Investment bank Merrill Lynch (ML) is in the process of shifting a majority of its contracts with troubled software company Satyam to India’s largest IT vendor Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), according to software industry
sources familiar with the matter. The account contributes around $40 million to Satyam’s yearly revenues.

ML had sent a team in early February to assess the ground situation at Satyam’s headquarters. The bank had told the Satyam team of their intention of handing over most of the IT services to another vendor. ET had reported in its edition dated January 31, that ML would be sending its team to the company’s office.

TCS currently provides application, maintenance and development work for the bank in the field of transaction documentation, legacy application, capital markets trading and financial accounting among others. TCS and Satyam also share financial services major Citi as a client.

Bank of America, which took over Merrill in September 2008, is also a TCS client. Industry officials say that when the two banks start their system and application integration process, TCS is likely to gain from this.

Bank of America/Merrill Lynch has dished out pink slips to 40 bankers of DSP Merrill Lynch unit

Bank of America/Merrill Lynch has dished out pink slips to 40 bankers in the wealth management division of DSP Merrill Lynch India, officially called the Global Private Client (GPC). This includes the head of investment products and head of investment research for India and other senior financial advisors. Curiously, the head of wealth management for Asia Pacific put in his papers last Friday, raising doubts about the timing of his exit.

Responding to a mail from ET, DSP Merrill Lynch India said: “As announced on December 11th, Bank of America expects to eliminate 30,000-35,000 positions over the next three years.” Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch in September 2008 for $50 billion. A senior executive at the bank, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that given the state of the economy and markets this was an inevitable exercise and that more layoffs would happen over the next few weeks.

Merrill Lynch Cutting Branch Support Staff

Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management, a unit of Bank of America Corp. (BAC), plans to cut less than 10%, or under 1,000, support staff positions in its branch offices, according to people familiar with the situation.

The cuts, which will include some client associate and sales assistant positions, come as Merrill recently let go several hundred rookie brokers based both on performance and an effort to reduce costs.

The firm has also lost several key executives, including former Chief Executive John Thain; Robert McCann, former head of the wealth management unit; and Greg Fleming, former chief operating officer and the No. 2 executive at Merrill.

The firm has more than 8,000 support staff in its branches.

Bank of America to announce 4,000 layoffs

Bank of America is getting ready to announce its next round of layoffs. According to the Financial Times, the bank is going to cut up to 4,000 employees. The layoffs will come from the capital markets business, which was recently merged with Merrill Lynch. Over the next three years, Bank of America is expected to cut about 35,000 jobs as a result of the Merrill Lynch merger. Officials have not said when the latest round of cuts will take place.

Bank of America job cuts likely to be worse than expected

It looks like the job cuts at Bank of America could be three times as bad as expected. Business television station CNBC is reporting that up to 30,000 jobs could be cut as Bank of America merges with Merrill Lynch.

If there's any good news in this for Charlotte, it's that the vast majority of the job cuts are supposed to be in New York City.

UNC Charlotte professor Tony Plath says most of the cuts are rumored to be in investment banking.

"It's going to hit the Merrill Lynch side harder than it will hit the general bank," Plath told us. Plath added that even the cuts on the Bank of America side are likely to be mostly out of New York, because that's where B of A's investment banking is headquartered.

Still, Plath says if 30,000 jobs are cut, there's no way Charlotte can escape unscathed. He estimates the Queen City will lose anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand jobs, but says it's too early to tell.

Plath says the timing of these cuts couldn't be worse. They'll likely take effect late this year into the first quarter of next year. During that first quarter, Wells Fargo is also expected to announce job cuts when it completes its expected takeover of Wachovia.

"Both of those layoff rounds are going to hit the market in Charlotte at the same time," Plath said. "It's going to be a bad first quarter here."

Plath says the effect of Wells Fargo/Wachovia job cuts is likely to hit the Queen City harder than the Bank of America cuts will -- meaning the bad news for Charlotte is far from over.