(Bloomberg) -- Credit Suisse Group AG dismissed 21 employees from its wealth-management business in Brazil, according to people familiar with the matter.

The staff reductions, which primarily affected support personnel, is part of a reorganization to “strengthen and simplify our operating model,” the bank said in an emailed statement Monday. “Certain redundancies were identified” after a merger between the wealth-management business in Brazil and the rest of Latin America, which started in March, according to the statement. 

Credit Suisse executives are discussing reducing thousands of roles globally as the struggling European lender seeks to slash its overall cost base by an additional $1 billion, people familiar with the matter said in August. The bank is mulling an aggressive plan to reduce its headcount, which stood at 51,410 at the end of June, the people said. 

Credit Suisse has about 1,000 employees in Brazil, and half of those are in the wealth-management business, the people said. It is the sixth-biggest investment bank in the nation by fee revenue this year through August, according to London-based research firm Dealogic. It has the fifth-biggest brokerage firm by equity trading, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Valor Economico’s Pipeline website previously reported the staff reductions. 

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