HSBC’s chief executive Stuart Gulliver might have been speaking to reporters on a conference call when he said: “We are a big business. You would be hard pushed to describe us as regional.” You could all but see his lip curling as he said it: Us? Regional?
The conference had actually been set up to discuss the bank’s half-year results, but no one had much interest in them, even though they were quite good by recent standards (despite another ugly provision to cover future penalties for past misconduct).
But the HSBC story today is one of its continued retreat from large parts of the world, combined with the ongoing debate about where it will be based.
There was more evidence of the former with the $5.2bn sale of the Brazilian business. On the latter there was a testy “no comment”.
Global HSBC may be, at least in some business lines, as Mr Gulliver was at pains to point out. And The Banker magazine’s last set of rankings still had it in the Top 10. Just.
But “the world’s local bank”? While Mr Gulliver might bang the global drum when he’s talking to reporters, it is thanks to his work selling businesses that the bank has surrendered its claim to that title.
As I have written, Britain may be next. The first steps have been taken in removing the HSBC name from the bits that will go into the Birmingham-based, ring-fenced retail bank. Once it has been re-branded (as Midland? First Direct?) the logical next step would be to spin it off, leaving a London-based investment and corporate banking business as the European outpost of HSBC. An HSBC that most expect will be headquartered in Hong Kong.
That league table The Banker put out? It was dominated by Chinese outfits, which are increasingly flexing their muscles.
HSBC might be a relic of the British Empire that is still largely run by British executives (they occupy the three positions at the top of the corporate ladder), but it looks all but certain to join them.
The momentum behind the move is such that it is now close to escape velocity; it is expected in the City of London, in Hong Kong, in Beijing, and just about everywhere else.
In the wider Chinese context HSBC will be a smaller fish in a much bigger pond. It will be fascinating to see how Mr Gulliver and his friends cope with that.
