Indosuez WI Carr Securities—a wholly-owned unit of Credit Agricole Indosuez—will exit its research brokerage activities in India and eight other Asian countries.

Indosuez WI Carr Securities will exit research brokerage operations in India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. Organisational changes will result in about 350 job losses. It will announce a severance package for these employees shortly.

Within Asia, Credit Agricole Indosuez will focus on research and brokerage activities in Japan. However, the company will “maintain execution capabilities” for clients who wish to trade in the nine Asian countries affected by the reorganisation.

Credit Agricole Indosuez—through its internal equity arm CAI Equities—will focus its Asian operations on three areas - research in Japan, electronic stock trading throughout the region and trading in derivatives in Asian equities.

Credit Agricole said that focusing on the Japanese research brokerage is in line with the company's strategy to have an active presence in major financial centres worldwide. “This integrated and strengthened Japanese product will complement existing strong positions in European equities,” the company said in a statement.

Electronic stock trading will be done through an internal platform called ‘Blink’, which is already used by the company's institutional investor clients. Through Blink, existing clients with buy-and-sell orders will still be served.

Derivatives trading in Asia, meanwhile, will benefit from a full integration with the company's existing European trading platform.

"We are committed to rigorously define the perimeter of our core businesses and are convinced of the strong potential of the three businesses we want to focus on in Asia," Alec de Lezardiere, head of Credit Agricole Indosuez Capital Markets, said in a statement.

Indosuez WI Carr Securities is the oldest foreign broker in the Asian equity markets.

WI Carr & Sons (Overseas) Ltd was established in Hong Kong in 1969, when it became the first overseas associate member of the Far East Stock Exchange in Hong Kong. It pioneered the distribution of Asian equities to European and American institutions in the early 1970s, and now has 560 employees in 17 offices, according to the company’s website.