Brokerage companies lay off staff amid Stock Exchange crisis

Prime Transaction, Confident Invest and GM Invest – three medium-sized brokerage companies on the Stock Exchange, have closed ten agencies over the last two months, and have laid off around 25 brokers, according to reports published in the weekly bulletins of the National Securities Commission. Brokerage companies are facing increasingly significant problems, given that Stock Exchange declines are keeping investors away from the market, and that the value of transactions has gone down by over 60% against a year ago. Under the circumstances, many of the agencies of brokerage companies have become unprofitable, with incomes of agents that provide financial investment services declining significantly compared with a year ago. “I did not set out to do any restructuring, but non-profitable agencies close automatically. If an agency incurs losses for three months running, I close it down (…),” says Nicolae Ghergus, chairman of Confident Invest.