SocGen's senior bankers are getting €486k for their summer holidays (as long as they don't come back)

SocGen's senior traders and bankers are limbering up. On July 1st - in exactly 24 days' time, they will be able to apply for the French bank's voluntary redundancy package. And it turns out that this is even more generous than previously supposed.

Recently released documents pertaining to SocGen's collective termination procedure suggest voluntary redundancy payments at the bank will be capped at €486k instead of the €300k the bank was thought to be offering previously. 

The new arrangement is so generous that SocGen insiders claim that a senior HR figure at SocGen's investment bank is availing herself of the arrangement and planning to leave after 20 years. 

SocGen's generosity reflects the bank's attempt to nudge expensive senior staff out the door as it tries to eliminate 1,600 jobs and lift profits. MUFG is also offering a voluntary redundancy package to 500 directors and managing directors in London, but insiders at the Japanese bank suggest it's considerably less generous.

Only SocGen's top staff will be eligible to receive the maximum €486k. The French bank is offering one month's pay per six month's service, capped at 30 months' salary (ie 15 years' service). Pay is defined as salary plus a fraction of the bonus awarded for the year 2016-2017. Only the longest serving and highest-paid staff will get the maximum amount.

SocGen's voluntary redundancy programme will be open from July to 6 February 2020, and employees can put themselves forward throughout. However, they have a strong incentive to volunteer from the start as the packages on offer become increasingly less generous as time progresses. - By December SocGen will only be offering 60% of pay for every six months worked, and the package will be capped at two years' pay in total.

SocGen's senior bankers and traders therefore have a strong incentive to resign in the next 24 days and to spend the rest of the summer on the beach. They should be able to afford several umbrellas.

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