[SINGAPORE] HSBC Holdings has culled more than two dozen analysts in recent days as Europe’s largest lender deepens a restructuring of its investment banking businesses, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Those affected by the move include Steven Major, HSBC’s Dubai-based global head of fixed income research, the sources said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information. Most of the cuts were in Europe, according to the sources.
As part of the sweeping changes, the London-based bank is combining macro strategy across asset classes including foreign exchange and fixed income, one of the sources said.
Murat Ulgen will now act as interim head of macro strategy in addition to his existing role as global head of emerging markets research, the source said. Meanwhile, Eliot Camplisson and Raj Sinha will expand their roles to become co-heads of equity research globally, and Janet Henry will continue to lead the global economics team, according to the source.
The latest revamp comes as chief executive officer Georges Elhedery continues to streamline the lender to increase efficiency. Since taking the helm in September, he has combined HSBC’s commercial and investment banking units, while making operations in the UK and Hong Kong standalone businesses.
The CEO has also shuttered most of the bank’s mergers and acquisition and equity underwriting operations in the US, Britain and continental Europe.
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“Our global research, equities sales and trading businesses are core to corporate & institutional banking,” a spokesperson for HSBC said. Major did not respond to a request for comment on LinkedIn.
Elhedery’s sweeping restructuring of the bank is expected to lead to US$1.8 billion in charges over the next two years. Billions more will be spent redeploying resources from lower-returning units to areas where the bank believes it has a better chance of earning higher revenues.
Most recently, HSBC reorganised its capital markets and corporate advisory units into a new business in a move aimed at grabbing a larger share of the booming private credit industry. Ed Sankey, the bank’s global head of equity capital markets, is among those departing, Bloomberg News has reported.
Senior banker Greg Guyett is also poised to leave within months, Bloomberg has reported. The firm is in the process of trimming some vice-chairman roles that reported to Guyett, the former head of the bank’s global investment banking arm, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Shares of HSBC have gained more than 10 per cent this year in London. Still, as one of the world’s largest trade financiers with a majority of revenue earned from Asia, HSBC is highly exposed to the global tariff war and growing tensions between Washington and Beijing. BLOOMBERG
