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HSBC will close the key parts of its investment bank activity in the United Kingdom, Europe and the Americas within the framework of the Plan of the Manager Georges Elhedery to revise its operations.
The largest lender in Europe will close its merger and acquisition activities and its stock market activities outside Asia and the Middle East, the bank said in a memo on Tuesday.
The units “really have no scale,” said a person who knows the decision. “It was just a very difficult job to build at a level where [HSBC] has a competitive advantage. Continuing to try to “penetrate” on these markets would not be the best use of the banks of the bank, they said.
HSBC will retain its debt capital markets, its leverage finances, its real financing activities of assets and infrastructure financing in these markets, said the person, because these units operate on a larger scale.
He underlines how part of HSBC’s activities is part of HSBC activities. Globally, the investment bank represented only 6% of the total HSBC revenues in the first half of last year, according to the interim report of the bank. Investment banking income for the period decreased by 3% compared to the previous year.
In a statement, the bank said that this decision was one of its “continuous efforts to simplify HSBC and increase leadership in our areas of force”. He would keep “more concentrated” capacities of mergers and equity and equity in Asia and the Middle East, “he said, and who came out of companies in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, It would be “subject to local legal requirements”.
This decision, reported for the first time by Bloomberg, comes when Elhedery, who replaced Noel Quinn as director general last year, oversees a large -scale restructuring which divides the bank into “oriental” and “Western units ».
The overhaul also targets cost reductions by reducing the costly layer of bank senior executives. The head of the global bank and private wealth of HSBC, Annabel Spring, left, as is his Celine Herweijer group sustainability agent.
HSBC benefited a lot from a higher interest rate period, but is preparing for the prospect that the drop in rates will reach its profits. The bank is also preparing to bring in a new chair as the limit approaches of nine years of Mark Tucker.
Last week, the bank said it was closing Zing, the payment application it launched last year in order to compete with digital competitors.
