BNS cuts its workforce

Article Excerpt

BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA, $56.50, is a #1 Buy for 2023. The lender (Toronto symbol BNS; Shares outstanding: 1.2 billion; Market cap: $67.7 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 7.5%; www.scotiabank.com) now plans to cut 3% of its global workforce. That’s mainly because more of its customers now use the Internet and mobile platforms to manage their accounts instead of visiting a branch. Separately, the bank is also writing down the value of its stake in Chinese lender Bank of Xi’an Co. Ltd. In all, Bank of Nova Scotia expects severance payments, the cost to exit real estate contracts, and the writedown, itself, to cut its overall earnings in the fiscal 2023 fourth quarter, ending October 31, 2023, by $590 million, or $0.49 a share. (To put that in context, the bank earned $2.10 billion, or $1.73 a share, in its fiscal 2023 third quarter.) Still, the full earnings impact of this latest cost-cutting effort should kick in by fiscal 2025. Bank…