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Truist Financial Corp. eliminated 1,687 jobs during the first quarter as the third wave of a “sizable reductions in force” that began in September and is projected to cover a 12- to 18-month period.
Truist’s community/retail banking hub is in Winston-Salem. The company has not provided a Triad west workforce total for several quarters.
The full-time equivalent workforce dropped to 49,218 as of March 31, compared with 50,905 on Dec. 31 and 53,853 on March 31, 2023, which represents an 8.3% year-over-year reduction.
The bank also listed what its workforce will be — 39,147 — after the projected second-quarter completion of selling the remaining 80% stake in Truist Insurance Holdings to the investor group led by Stone Point Capital, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and Mubadala Investment Co. The firms already had spent $1.95 billion in April 2023 to secure an initial 20% stake.
The new owners are committing to keeping the subsidiary’s workforce and more than 250 offices.
Since BB&T Corp. completed its $33.4 billion purchase of SunTrust Banks in December 2019 to form Truist, the current workforce is down 17% — or by at least 10,082 positions from about 59,300.
When the insurance subsidiary is no longer part of Truist, the workforce will have been decreased by 19,883 jobs.
For Truist employees who remain with the bank, they have been told they will be required to work in the office at least four days a week beginning in the fall. The workplace shift affects the bank’s in-office policy “for our hybrid teammates, which applies to the majority of our workforce.”
“As we continue to prioritize the focus on long-term growth,” the company said, “we believe our best work comes from being together.”
Truist and the firms valued the insurance subsidiary at $15.5 billion, with Truist projecting $10.1 billion in after-tax cash proceeds.
To put the sale into perspective, Winston-Salem based BB&T Corp. paid $33.4 billion for all of SunTrust.
The workforce reduction is projected to represent at least $300 million in annual savings as part of an overall $750 million expense-reduction initiative.
Truist disclosed Monday it spent $70 million during the quarter on severance and branch closures. That’s compared with $155 million in the fourth quarter.
On Monday, chairman and chief executive Bill Rogers told analysts that “our expense discipline is showing up in our results, which gives us confidence that we’ll meet our expense objectives this year.”
In terms of branches, Truist reported 71 net branch closings during the first quarter for a total of 1,930 as of March 31. The count is down 85 since March 31, 2023.
The branch count has shrunk from more than 2,900 in December 2019, which met the cost-savings initiative goal to close 800 branches between the end of 2019 and March 31, 2022.
Truist has eight Winston-Salem branches, along with 12 in Greensboro, two each in High Point in Kernersville and one each in Clemmons and Lewisville.
Separately, Truist’s board of directors announced the appointment of Laurence Stein, expanding the membership to 13.
Stein, 56, recently retired from Goldman Sachs after serving 27 years in senior leadership positions across multiple lines of business, including asset and wealth management, securities, investment banking, finance, operations, technology, and risk. His most recent position at Goldman Sachs was chief operating officer for asset and wealth management.
rcraver@wsjournal.com
336-727-7376
@rcraverWSJ
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