LONDON – Citigroup is offering to pay some employees a portion of their bonuses early if they agree to depart, as executives continue with their restructuring of the Wall Street giant.

For some elite traders and bankers, their annual bonuses can stretch into millions of dollars and are often many multiples of their annual salary. Citigroup typically awards workers their bonuses in February.

The bank is making the offer to a limited number of staff, according to people familiar with the matter. In addition to the bonus awards, those who accept the offer will also be allowed to keep all their deferred stock awards, the people said.

Employees cannot volunteer for the offers because these are being made to those impacted by Citigroup’s ongoing reorganisation, which is focused on restructuring its ranks to fit chief executive officer Jane Fraser’s strategy for the bank.

A spokesperson for Citigroup declined to comment.

Ms Fraser announced in September that she will undertake the biggest restructuring of Citigroup in decades, as she seeks to make the company more efficient and eliminate layers of management within the bank’s 240,000-strong workforce. The bank has said it is expecting to record a charge of a couple of hundred million dollars associated with the moves in the fourth quarter.

Executives hope that offering staff a portion of their annual bonus will coax more of them to leave rather than having to rely solely on layoffs for the restructuring, the people familiar with the matter said. Those who accept the offer are still expected to honour their requirements for gardening leave, meaning they cannot immediately take a new job, the people said.

For employees considering their options, the offers are a chance to earn a guaranteed portion of their bonus rather than running the risk of remaining with Citigroup only to be caught up in the cuts in early 2024, which could leave them jobless with no bonus.

The lender has already cut more than 300 senior management roles as part of the revamp. Those are part of a wider staff cull that is expected to continue into 2024, although the company has yet to put a figure on the ultimate number of job cuts.

“Building a winning bank requires a great deal of commitment, hard work and resilience from each of us,” Ms Fraser said in a memo to staff in November. “I’m fully aware we’re asking a lot of our people.” BLOOMBERG