HSBC bosses will face fresh calls from the Monaco-based hedge fund Knight Vinke to quit their ill-fated US operation, when Europe’s largest bank holds its annual general meeting at London’s Barbican Centre on Friday, The Independent reports.
Knight Vinke’s founder, Eric Knight, who will attend the meeting, began his crusade eight months ago against HSBC chief executive Michael Geoghegan and chairman Stephen Green.
Knight Vinke’s chief investment officer, Glen Suarez, says that HSBC’s 22-strong board “needed to put pressure on the management to consider the unthinkable” and ditch its ailing American division, the performance of which has already cost the bank more than $15 billion (7.5 billion) in provision for bad debt since last year.
“They need to shut it down,” says Suarez. “The business is so far under the water that they would only be able to sell it for a negative value. We plan to use next Friday’s meeting to press our case further.”
He adds: “It took us more than four weeks to put our analysis of HSBC’s US household business together.
“Many on the board of HSBC, which counts four chief executive officers among its number, can simply never give the time to fully assess the American business. It’s like an evening job for some of them.”