AMP’s newly appointed chief executive Andrew Mohl is continuing on his cutting way as he tries to stem losses at the giant company. He has announced AMP will cut 1200 jobs in a bid to turn around the troubled group.

Transformation at AMP is becoming the highest priority following news that it will incur a $1.2 billion writedown on businesses bought over the past five years. Analysts said that will transfer a profit of about $700 million into a loss of as much as $500 million for the year. Adding to the bad news was a decision by Standard & Poor’s to put AMP and subsidiary companies’ AA- rating on a negative creditwatch.

Jobs and operations will be slashed in NZ, the UK and Australia. A restructure will reduce the number of jobs in AMP’s banking business by about 500 by the end of next year. More than 550 jobs will go in Australian financial services, at a cost of $30 million.

Under the leadership of former CEO Paul Batchelor, poor equity markets had already forced AMP to cut 1500 jobs in the UK. Mr Mohl said the latest round of cuts are part of changes that will make AMP “harder, sharper and more focused”.

“This is a tough call, but tough times call for tough decisions and we’re making them,” Mr Mohl said. “The business needs to change – to become more efficient, more productive, more competitive and more cost-effective.”

And there’s no time to lose, which is why the cuts are happening so quickly. Mr Mohl said that if he had more time to turn around the company, different approaches may have been considered. “In a more benign market environment, we would have managed this transformation differently, for example, through natural attrition. Unfortunately we do not have the luxury of time.”