PNC to Cut More Than 600 Jobs in North Carolina

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. intends to lay off up to 621 workers in North Carolina after it completes its acquisition of RBC Bank USA in Raleigh later this quarter, according to a notice filed last week with the state's commerce department.

The jobs being eliminated are largely back-office and administrative positions at the RBC's headquarters in downtown Raleigh and its operations center in Rocky Mount, the Triangle Business Journal in Raleigh reported late Friday.

PNC is paying nearly $3.5 billion for RBC Bank, a unit of Royal Bank of Canada that has roughly $28 billion of assets and more than 425 branches in six Southeastern states. The sale, expected to close in March, would mark PNC's entry into the Carolinas and Alabama while expanding its presence in Florida, Georgia and Virginia.

Since the deal was announced over the summer, PNC Chairman and Chief Executive James Rohr has been telling investors and analysts that PNC expects to trim $150 million from RBC's overhead in the first 12 months after the deal's completion and as much as $230 million overall, though he had declined to offer specifics.

The Business Journal reported that Pittsburgh-based PNC said it would begin laying off RBC employees around March 16. A PNC spokesman told the Business Journal that the Pittsburgh bank also intends to hire workers in Raleigh and Rocky Mount in a variety of positions, though he declined to specify how many jobs would be added.