A total of 50 employees from First Market Bank and Union Bank and Trust have been given their walking papers.
In March, Union Bankshares purchased First Market for about$100 million in stock. (You can read dabout that deal here.)
William Beale, president and chief executive of Union Bankshares, said the recent job cuts are likely all the jobs that will be eliminated as part of the acquisition of First Market. The combined bank will have about 900 employees.
“Everybody having a status change has been notified,” said Beale. “Some will be retained until the end of the year and some well into the first quarter of next year.”
He said the personnel cuts are part of a 9 percent reduction in overhead achieved by combining the two banks. Most of the savings will be from eliminating duplicated contracts with vendors, he said.
The two banks are in the process of merging into one, which is expected to be complete in February. The name of the bank to be has not been announced.
Katie Gilstrap, director of marketing at First Market, said the job cuts were primarily in areas where there was “duplication in function.”
Gilstrap said most of the cuts are located at the First Market operations center at 2001 Maywill St. near Staples Mill Road. There were also handful of cuts at the Shockoe Bottom headquarters.
Jobs were cut in data processing, deposit operations, accounting and other back-office functions. While most of the cuts were concentrated at the operations center, a few employees from human resources, marketing and retail and commercial banking were let go as well, a few of which are employees of Union Bank and Trust.
There is a chance some of the workers may be reemployed.
“All displaced teammates will be considered to be internal applicants for future job postings at either bank or the combined bank,” Gilstrap said.
Gilstrap said eventually the Richmond operations center will be closed and consolidated with the Union Bank and Trust operations center in Carmel Church, which is in Caroline County.
Al Harris is a BizSense reporter. Please send news tips to Al@richmondbizsense.com.
