BY JAMIE HERZLICH
Newsday.com
August 19, 2004

As Bank of America pushes ahead with its takeover of Fleet Bank, about 1,000 jobs were cut companywide yesterday throughout the Northeast, according to sources close to the bank.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank confirmed yesterday that layoffs were made, but wouldn't disclose the exact number or the impact on specific areas like Long Island and New York City. The layoffs were first reported yesterday by the Boston Globe, which stated that 1,500 or more employees could be affected.

"Employment levels in some branches will increase and others will decrease," said Bank of America spokeswoman Alexandra Trower. She said the bank did not plan on shutting any branches and would actually open 150 new branches across the country this year, including 10 in the Northeast.

The layoffs come two days after Bank of America completed conversion of its Fleet retail branches into Bank of America banking centers upstate and in western New York, the first round of conversions.

Trower said Fleet branches in New York City should be converted the week of Sept. 20 and on Long Island in the first week of October.

Boston-based Fleet had 83 branches in Nassau and Suffolk with total deposits of $5.4 billion, 7.8 percent of the market as of June 30, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Fleet has 57 branches in New York City with a market share of less than 1 percent. Bank of America has four New York City branches with deposits of $10.6 billion, a 2.58 percent share.

Part of the impetus for the $47-billion acquisition completed in April was Bank of America's desire for more visibility in New York City.

"We plan to have a significant presence in New York City," said Trower. Only a couple of weeks ago, Bank of America broke ground on a 51-story office tower at 1 Bryant Park in Manhattan that should be completed by 2008. The New York City Industrial Development Agency awarded $650 million in Liberty Bonds and $42 million in tax breaks to Bank of America to build it, with the pledge they would keep 3,000 jobs in the city and add 2,800 more.

News of the layoffs raised questions on that commitment, however. "It's the job of New York City officials to make sure they live up to that deal," said Bettina Damiani, project director for Good Jobs New York, a watchdog group. "It's convenient they won't specify where these layoffs are."

Janel Patterson, spokeswoman for the city's Economic Development Corp., said, "we will monitor the situation as it goes. Their intention is to increase their presence in New York."

Employees at Fleet branches were reluctant to speak to a Newsday reporter yesterday. But one Fleet employee in Suffolk yesterday, who declined to be named, said that he believed a teller was fired yesterday and "it didn't go too well."

Yesterday, Trower said bank tellers were the least impacted and layoffs were in positions companywide.

Even before the layoffs, some Fleet and Bank of America officials decided to move on to other opportunities.

"We've hired over 60 people in the last six to eight weeks," said John Kanas, chief executive of North Fork Bankcorp, whose banking empire includes New York City, New Jersey and Long Island. He said that includes Bank of America's senior management team in New Jersey and Fleet's senior management team on Long Island. "It's helping us a lot."

Analyst Thomas McCandless of Deutsche Bank said he expected little impact on customer service. "The game plan is to reduce duplication without interrupting service," said McCandless, Deutsche's senior bank analyst in Manhattan.

The layoffs come as no surprise, he said. In April, Bank of America had announced that it would be cutting 12,500 jobs as a result of its merger with FleetBoston Financial Corp., with about 30 percent of them accomplished through attrition.

David Hilder, senior bank analyst for Bear Stearns in Manhattan, said he thought the merger would mean more for the Fleet customer. "I think that the customers of Fleet will find the transition to Bank of America is a trade up," Hilder said.

Staff writers Alan J. Wax and Regina Marie Glick contributed to this story.

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