Charles Schwab cuts 1,000 employees post-TD Ameritrade deal

Twenty days after closing its $22 billion deal for TD Ameritrade, Charles Schwab is cutting about 1,000 employees in an effort to reduce redundancy, according to the company.

Schwab notified employees on Oct. 26 that it would terminate 3% of the company’s combined workforce.

“We have begun notifying individuals that their roles have been eliminated and they will be leaving the firm,” said the note from Schwab’s executive counsel, which stated that the company was “streamlining our structure” and “reshaping our branch network.”

Schwab said there would not be additional layoffs in 2020, but it left the door open to future staffing changes.

“Teams will be combining over time, and each enterprise will proceed at a different pace over the next 18 to 36 months,” the company stated. “Leaders will share more context specific to your enterprise as soon as they can.”

Among those let go this week were several veterans of TD Ameritrade Institutional. They included Kate Healy, former managing director of Generation Next; Kristin Petrick, former managing director of marketing and communications; Pete Dorsey, former managing director of institutional’s sales and advisor management; and Jim Dario, former managing director of product management, according to wealthmanagement.com.

Michael Nagle/Bloomberg

A Schwab spokeswoman declined to confirm their departures, stating that Schwab “will not be commenting on individual staffing actions.”

Earlier this month, Schwab parted ways with Tom Nally, former president of TD Ameritrade Institutional, who had been with the advisor services division for more than 26 years. Other executives, including Skip Schweiss, head of TD Ameritrade’s retirement plan solutions business, and Dani Fava, the former director of institutional innovation, left the firm prior to the deal’s close.

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In the notice, Schwab thanked the laid off employees and said it would provide reemployment assistance and severance benefits to them.

Employees let go will have “early access” to all newly opened positions and be treated as internal candidates for more than 1,000 current job openings at the company during their 60-notice period, according to Schwab.

Prior to the acquisition, TD Ameritrade had roughly 8,900 full time employees, according to the last quarterly report it filed with the SEC.