P. M. BRIEFING : Bank of Boston Splits Realty Unit

The Bank of Boston Corp., battered by big losses in the region’s sagging real estate market, today announced a major reorganization that will eliminate its real estate group as one of five independent line businesses.

Instead, the region’s biggest banking company said its commercial and residential mortgage real estate activities will be split and become part of other existing units.

Also, the company’s New England group, which includes the five banks it owns in the region, will reorganize along functional lines, the bank said.

Layoffs “are not part of the strategy,” said Wayne Taylor, a company spokesman. Taylor said the point of the reorganization is not to break up the real estate group but “to have an organization that works well.”