This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on January 19, 2016.

KUALA LUMPUR: CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, Malaysia’s second-largest lender by assets, does not plan to cut any more jobs after its decision to retrench 32 staff at its Hong Kong investment banking and equities operations, according to the group’s chief executive officer Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Aziz.

Tengku Zafrul said the group’s decision to let go of the 32 employees in Hong Kong was due to very tough capital market condition across Asia, especially in Hong Kong itself.

“But we are not planning on doing any more MSS (mutual separation scheme) in Malaysia, nor in Indonesia. The focus this year will be looking at improving our productivity, and continuing our T18 agenda. In short, there will be no more MSS nor retrenchment,” he said. Unveiled in February 2015, T18, short for Target 2018, is CIMB Group’s mid-term strategy statement.

Bloomberg reported last Friday that CIMB was cutting 32 jobs or about one-fifth of its investment banking staff at its Hong Kong operations, due to a downturn in regional business.

It quoted Tengku Zafrul, in a text message response to its questions, as saying that CIMB “is not spared from the harsh realities of the deteriorating capital markets faced by players with investment banking and equities businesses in Asia”.

This came on the back of several job cuts last year. In the first half of 2015, CIMB had cut about 50 jobs across Asia. Then in July, it announced the departure of 1,891 employees in Malaysia under a MSS, with another 1,708 in Indonesia.

Meanwhile, Tengku Zafrul said yesterday that the group is satisfied with its current capital position and is not looking at initiating any corporate exercise to raise funds.

“We are happy with the capital position that we are in. We will see a lot of our initiatives regarding capital optimisation come into play,” Tengku Zafrul told pressmen after the grand finale of the CIMB Asean Stock Challenge 2015 here yesterday.

“Last year was a difficult year for us. We have to undertake MSS, which cost us money, and the rationalisation of our investment bank. So these hit our capital. But our retained earnings is enough and going forward, with our initiatives, [we] will see an increase in our CET1 (common equity tier 1). So we are not looking at any capital call, rights issue, or placement [exercise],” he said.