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AUSTRALIAN BIGGEST BANKS ABOUT TO AXE 7,000 JOBS

The big banks are likely to scrap 7000 jobs over the next two years as lenders cut costs that account for 58 per cent of expenses to offset the weakest credit growth since World War II, according to UBS.

Lenders will reduce total staff numbers by 3.9 per cent to 172,000 from 179,000, UBS analysts said in a note to clients. Those figures don’t include ANZ’s Asian staff, they said.

The focus on employment costs at banks mirror the challenge faced around the world by lenders battling slower revenue growth amid weak household and business confidence. ANZ is preparing to cut as many as 900 jobs in coming months, the union that represents bank workers said last week.

‘‘We expect the banks to be heavily focused on their cost bases,’’ the UBS analysts said. ‘‘Solid reductions in headcount and discretionary costs are anticipated as banks react to the lower growth environment.’’

UBS continues ‘‘to be cautious on the outlook for credit growth’’ and doesn’t expect a ‘‘significant pickup in the housing market’’, the note said.

To help spur borrowing, the central bank lowered the benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point on November 1 and December 6 as Europe’s debt crisis dimmed prospects for global growth.

UBS estimates housing credit grew from 1977 to 2010 at a 14 per cent annual pace, and is currently expanding at 5.7 per cent, the weakest rate since World War II.

‘‘We anticipate housing credit growth to continue to remain subdued, probably staying in the 4 to 6 percent range for some time,’’ the analysts said.

Lowest profit per employee

Australia’s banks in recent years became ‘‘more lax’’ in managing staff numbers as they invested to meet expanding demand for lending, after reducing headcount to 141,000 in 2002 from 166,000 in 1996, according to UBS.

Among the big four lenders, ANZ employees individually delivered the least profit, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and company reports. ANZ Bank made $109,424 in net income from each employee in the year ended September 2011. That compared with $138,819 at Commonwealth Bank, $185,379 at Westpac, and $116,900 at National Australia, the data show.

Still, Australia’s banks were among the best-performing lenders in the world last year. While shares of banks in the US fell 13 per cent, Japan’s lenders lost 23 per cent and Europe’s slumped 34 per cent, Australian banks fell 7 per cent, according to UBS. Only Canadian lenders fared better, limiting their 2011 decline to 3 per cent.

Reducing headcount to 172,000 ‘‘should help absorb underlying wage increases keeping total staff expenditure growth to around 1 per cent per annum,’’ the UBS analysts wrote.

Commonwealth Bank said in a statement that it has ‘‘no target or short-term plan for major staff reductions’’. The bank may make redundancies ‘‘from time to time in some areas, while in other areas more staff may be needed’’, it said.

Westpac ‘‘expects there will be a decrease in staff numbers this year, but we have no specific targets,’’ the bank’s spokeswoman Supreet Gosal said.

National Australia Bank expects staff numbers to ‘‘fluctuate in various parts of the business’’ as it completes and outsources some projects and continues to ‘‘focus on efficiency,’’ spokesman Brian Walsh said in a statement.

Kevin Foley, an ANZ Bank spokesman in Sydney, said that ‘‘there is some belt tightening going on in response to difficult market conditions’’.

Bloomberg

RICHES BEYOND YOUR WILDEST DREAMS IN SPAIN FOR THE TAKING

Millions of crisis-hit Spaniards are snatching up tickets for the world’s richest lottery draw on Thursday, which will shower winners with a record 2.5 billion euro ($3.25 billion) in prizes.

Undeterred by a 21.5 per cent jobless rate and the prospect of recession, four out of every five Spaniards are expected to spend money on a ticket to a lottery known as “El Gordo”, or the “Fat One”.

Long queues snaked through the streets as people took a chance to dream of an escape from the economic crisis, each person buying an average of more than 60 euro worth of tickets.

In Madrid’s main artery, the Gran Via, many waited for tickets at a small kiosk.

“I am spending more than last year, 100 euros, and I am sharing the tickets with my friends and family,” said a 48-year-old office worker, Victoria.

“Some of them are having a very tough time financially and I want us to win,” she said.

A tradition that dates back nearly two centuries, “El Gordo” is an engrained Christmas ritual.

Family, friends and colleagues can play the same number and share the gains if they are lucky on December 22, when pupils from former Madrid orphanage San Ildefenso sing out the numbers on national television.

At Madrid’s Dona Manolita lottery ticket shop, which is famed for having sold the winning number several times, superstitious players are prepared to wait for hours for a ticket.

“And they say Spain is in a crisis,” a passer-by could be heard muttering as he struggled to get past the huge queue.

Spaniards’ attachment to “El Gordo” allows the national lottery to rake in a fortune each year, of which 70 per cent is shared out in prizes.

It makes the draw one of the world’s most generous, said Juan Antonio Gallardo, sales director of the national lottery.

The jackpot has grown to 400,000 euro from 300,000 euro last year.

With lottery ticket sales expected to amount to 3.6 billion euro, up from 2.7 billion euro last year, the total prize money to be shared out is expected to be 2.52 billion euro, the lottery says.

“The Christmas lottery is written into Spaniards’ DNA. No other lottery in the world sells so much,” Gallardo said.

Spaniards are paring back Christmas spending as they face a bleak economic outlook in 2012, with incoming conservative prime minister Mariano Rajoy promising 16.5 billion euro in budget cuts.

“I am spending much less than last year. I am looking for practical gifts,” said 52-year-old Maria Jose Perez, with a shopping bag stuffed with pyjamas and sports shoes for her 16-year-old daughter.

According to Spain’s federation of independent consumers and users, Spanish households will spend an average 560 euro on Christmas – 114 euro less than last year.

“Consumption is fragile, frugal and tired,” said a report by the Spanish business school ESADE, which predicted a 40 per cent decline in Christmas spending.

“But we will always keep some room for the little pleasures,” said the report’s author, Gerard Costa.

“And we won’t forget traditions like the lottery.”

Spain’s outgoing Socialist government had planned to sell a 30 per cent stake in the lucrative lottery to rake in up to 7.5 billion euro for the state’s depleted coffers.

But the government abandoned the sale in September, blaming plunging markets that would have slashed the sale price.

The national lottery posted a net profit of 2.99 billion euro in 2009, up 3.5 per cent from the year before despite an economic crisis.

Spain traces its fascination with the lottery back to the creation of the royal lottery in 1763, which used profits for social causes such as hospitals. The national lottery was approved in 1811 and held its first draw the following year.

BILL GATES THE EXTRAORDINARY PERSON DESERVES A KNIGHTHOOD

Bill Gates today ruled out ever returning to the helm of Microsoft and dismissed harsh barbs by his former arch-rival Steve Jobs.

In an interview with Fairfax Media, Gates said Jobs was driven by the fact that “Microsoft machines outsold his machines by a lot”.

This month Fortune reported rumours that Gates was considering a comeback to Microsoft, the company he founded in 1975 but stepped back from in 2006 to focus full-time on philanthropy.

But speaking in Sydney today, where he is on holiday with his family, Gates said he had made the transition to work full-time at his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation “and that will be what I do the rest of my life”.

“I’m part-time involved with Microsoft, including even being in touch this week to give some of my advice but that’s not going to change – the foundation requires all of my energy and we feel we’re having a great impact.”

A possible comeback was loosely compared to Jobs, who took the reins at Apple in the late 90s after a decade in the wilderness and saved the company.

Steve Ballmer, who has been Microsoft’s CEO since taking over from Gates in 2000, is widely considered to have missed the significance of what Jobs dubbed the “post-PC era” and Microsoft is now an also-ran in smartphones, tablets and music players.

Gates, who plans to donate nearly all of his money to charity when he passes away, may be just as culpable as Ballmer for missing the new era in computing as he has been quoted questioning the viability of Apple devices like the iPod and iPad.

Gates on Jobs

Gates and Jobs were the founders of the personal computing revolution and although they have displayed great mutual respect, over the years the competitors frequently took potshots at one another.

Jobs recently said Gates was “unimaginative” and hadn’t invented anything.

Today, Gates said Jobs was “brilliant” and he enjoyed working with him on Mac software and also competing with him, but “because the Microsoft machines outsold his machines by a lot he was always kind of tough on Microsoft, but that’s fine, he was a brilliant person”.

‘Tough things’

“Our work at Microsoft was super successful for all good reasons but Steve made huge contributions and he actually in his last few years was a lot kinder than that but over the years he did say some tough things,” Gates said today.

Gates’ approach – to license his software to all computer makers – contrasted sharply with Jobs’s philosophy of controlling the entire user experience from top to tail.

Gates’ method saw Windows dominate the PC industry but the Jobs philosophy is proving powerful in the smartphone and tablet era.

Gates has previously said of Apple’s closed model: “The integrated approach works well when Steve is at the helm. But it doesn’t mean it will win many rounds in the future.”

‘Crappy’

Jobs said of Gates’s open model: “Of course his fragmented model worked, but it didn’t make really great products. It produced crappy products.”

Gates has previously described Jobs as “fundamentally odd” and while recognising his mesmerising effect on people, described him as “weirdly flawed as a human being”.

Jobs, who went on a journey of spiritual enlightenment in his younger years, said Gates would “be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger”.

But Jobs’s harshest barbs came during an interview with his biographer, Walter Isaacson.

“Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology,” Jobs told Isaacson. “He just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas.”

Jobs has previously complained that Gates stole the idea of bringing a mouse-operated graphical user interface to Windows after seeing it on the original Macintosh.

‘No shame’

“They just ripped us off completely, because Gates has no shame,” Jobs said in the biography, to which Gates replied “if he believes that, he really has entered into one of his own reality distortion fields”.

Of Jobs’s technology prowess, Gates has said: “Don’t you understand that Steve doesn’t know anything about technology? He’s just a super salesman.”

But in an internal email that previously surfaced, Gates was more charitable: “Steve Jobs’ ability to focus in on a few things that count, get people who get user interface right, and market things as revolutionary are amazing things.”

When Jobs and Gates appeared on stage together in 2007 in a rare joint interview, Gates said: “I’d give a lot to have Steve’s taste.”

Gates on … bringing his family to Sydney

“They thought it would be fun to come down and see some of the neat places around Australia. Sydney is a great place and it’s summer here. Wish it was a tiny bit warmer, but it hasn’t been too bad”

… on Australia’s overseas aid 

“Australia is making good increases” but “The other rich countries on average are doing even more.

“I think it’s important to get out to Australians that this kind of generosity really makes a difference. Actually the most impactful dollars that Australia can spend are actually what goes to help the poorest.”