HSBC CEO pitches Hong Kong clients, hires more bankers after setbacks

[HONG KONG] HSBC is redoubling efforts to revive its flagging Hong Kong investment banking franchise, deploying its top leadership to win back market share as competition intensifies in Asia’s biggest financial hub.

In recent months, CEO Georges Elhedery and his top lieutenants have been on the ground in Hong Kong pitching clients for deals, according to people familiar with the matter.

Elhedery has also sent tailored video messages to key clients across Greater China, while pressing executives to engage with roughly 400 major customers ranging from buyout firms to hedge funds, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing internal strategy.

The lender is trying to regain its footing following a major global restructuring of its investment bank early last year that triggered a slew of senior departures, some of which the bank welcomed, and cost it a lead role on a marquee cross-border mandate.

The British bank, which generates the bulk of its profits in Asia, is now betting it can seize market share from Wall Street rivals currently stymied by geopolitical tensions and tighter regulatory scrutiny in China.

Since taking the helm in 2024, Elhedery has shaken up the staid lender, arguing that the firm required a rapid pivot towards a stricter, high-performance culture. 

To support the push, HSBC has hired more than a dozen investment bankers for its China business over the past year, poaching talent from rivals including JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, the people said. The recruitment drive appears to be gaining some early traction.

The bank is currently working on about 40 initial public offerings in Hong Kong, two of the people said, a sharp increase from the five it worked on in all of 2025.

There’s intense competition in Hong Kong’s IPO market as a rush of technology and biotech listings puts the city on track to raise more than US$43 billion in 2026. Domestic and international banks are competing for lucrative fee pools, fuelled by Beijing’s capital-market reforms and relaxed listing rules for high-growth sectors.

HSBC’s recent struggles were underscored by its failure to secure a lead mandate for the listing of health and beauty retailer AS Watson Group. The company is controlled by billionaire Li Ka-shing’s CK Hutchison, one of Hong Kong’s richest men and a flagship HSBC client for decades.

Further highlighting the challenging environment, Li’s conglomerate offloaded a US$5.8 billion stake in the UK’s largest mobile operator last month without using any financial advisers.

CK Hutchison couldn’t be reached for comment. 

Goldman Sachs and UBS Group are leading the likely dual London and Hong Kong IPO of AS Watson, which could raise more than US$2 billion. 

“HSBC is a market leader across a broad range of products and services in Asia,” a spokesperson for the bank said. “We have strong capital markets and advisory capabilities and our revenue there is growing, and we continue to build market share advising large corporates on high-value transactions.”

HSBC may still win a role on the Watson mandate, though its exact position remains unclear, some of the people said.

The bank has secured some recent wins, including a mandate for the public offering of holiday resort operator Club Med, which could raise US$500 million. It was also tapped by Linkerbot, a Chinese startup specialising in dexterous robotic hands, for a share sale that could launch as early as this year.

In total, HSBC currently holds about 70 IPO mandates across Asia, including the 40 in Hong Kong, according to people familiar with the matter. The lender is positioning itself to capture listings that US banks are retreating from amid lingering geopolitical tensions and regulatory sensitivities between Washington and Beijing.

Morgan Stanley and China International Capital are the top arrangers of share sales in the city this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, while HSBC currently ranks 12th. The top 10 arrangers in Hong Kong are evenly split between Wall Street firms and mainland Chinese banks and brokerages. 

Since taking the helm in 2024, Elhedery has pursued aggressive cost-cutting, scaling back equity capital markets operations in Europe and the US to accelerate the bank’s pivot towards Asia.

A little over a year ago, HSBC announced it would halt equity underwriting and advisory services outside its core strongholds in Asia and the Middle East.

Still, some people familiar with the bank have said these cuts raise a broader question: whether HSBC should continue offering international advisory and capital markets services if it can no longer provide its major Asian and Middle Eastern clients with full access to key financial centres such as London and New York.

“Downsizing is difficult,” said Rupak Ghose, an independent analyst in London, referring to investment banking. “No one senior in a global role wants to stay, as we have seen from departures. Just being a local player without cross-border presence – what is their competitive advantage over local domestic banks?”

Missed mandate

Losing the lead role on the Watson listing could be a setback to HSBC’s top leadership, which has consistently struck a bullish tone on Hong Kong’s future to steer the bank through years of political friction between China and the West. 

Elhedery spent the early months of this year based in the city, partly to oversee HSBC’s US$14 billion acquisition to take full control of Hang Seng Bank, the lender’s largest corporate transaction since the early 2000s.

HSBC’s ties to Li Ka-shing run deep. In 1979, the bank sold its stake in Hutchison Whampoa to Li’s Cheung Kong Holdings, a landmark deal that established a decades-long financial alliance with the city’s most prominent billionaire.

In 2011, HSBC was among the bookrunners on the 10.5 billion yuan (S$2 billion) listing of Hui Xian Real Estate Investment Trust, which was controlled by Cheung Kong. It later served as sole financial adviser on the 2015 corporate reorganisation of Li’s two flagship listed companies into Cheung Kong Property Holdings and CK Hutchison Holdings.

As the biggest bank in Hong Kong and one of three lenders authorised to issue the city’s banknotes, HSBC remains a dominant local force. It employs more than 20,000 people in the hub, and its Hong Kong business generated US$9.6 billion in pre-tax profit in 2025, accounting for almost a third of the group’s total.

Replenishment

Still, the fallout from the investment bank’s restructuring continues to reverberate, triggering departures even in divisions unaffected by the cost-cutting.

Gerry Keefe, head of US and European commercial and investment banking, left the firm recently, just over a year after taking the role. Karim Tannir, head of the newly created Middle East banking business and one of the region’s most veteran dealmakers, has also departed.

Locally, Doris Wong, a senior banker covering Hong Kong real estate, energy and consumer clients, recently defected to Standard Chartered, while London-based banker Robert Baker is also exiting.

The talent drain underscores a longer-term slide in the league tables. HSBC ranked 34th for managing IPOs in Asia ex-Japan this year, capturing a mere 0.8 per cent market share by value, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A decade earlier, in 2014, it ranked fifth.

The bank has been replenishing and adding to its financiers in Greater China as deals in the region rebound.

Among the additions is Karen Chen, hired from JPMorgan to lead consumer investment banking coverage, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private matters. Xihong Ai is set to join from Bank of America later this year, while Yuan Shuai, previously with Goldman Sachs’ equity capital markets team, recently started at the firm.

HSBC also added Shawn Wang from JPMorgan last month as a director for the general industrials sector. Last year, the lender tapped Randy Wang from Jefferies Financial Group and Fisher Zhou, a former Credit Suisse banker, as managing directors to lead its technology, media and telecommunications, and healthcare teams, respectively.

Spokespeople for HSBC, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Jefferies declined to comment on the hires. BLOOMBERG