HSBC chairman Sir Mark Tucker completed the shake-up of his top level management team today, bringing in Jon Bingham as chief financial officer, as least on an interim basis.
In April chief executive Noel Quinn unexpectedly said he would retire after five years in the job, promoting unconfirmed gossip of a clash over strategy with Tucker.
Quinn has been replaced by Georges Elhedery, himself a former CFO of HSBC, but signed off today with strong first half-results.
The appointment of finance chiefs as the top men reporting into Tucker is seen by the City of indicative of wider trends, with the money men – the finance departments – increasingly regarded as the decision makers, in many ways more influential than old style CEOs laying out strategy and looking for growth.
That Tucker now has Elhedery and Bingham just below him suggests he regards costs controls as more important than anything else.
Bingham is a former KPMG man who became global financial controller of HSBC in 2020.
Elhedery, said: "Jon has outstanding technical accounting and regulatory knowledge and expertise and was the clear choice to provide interim succession for the Group CFO role."
A search for a permanent CFO is underway, but Bingham seems the most likely candidate.
Elhedery was paid £3.3 million last year as CFO – Bingham can expect something similar.
Tucker himself is due to stand down in 2026, prompting some concern from analysts at the pace of change at the top of one of the biggest banks in the world.
Bingham becomes the fourth person to be CFO at HSBC in just a few years. One investor said once Elhedery was appointed: “Promotions do leave gaps elsewhere, and that merry-go-round can be problematic if not handled well.”
HSBC shares rose 21p to 698p today, which leaves the business valued at £130 billion.
Although it is headquartered in London, it has offices in more than 60 countries and assets of towards $3,000 trillion.
This has sometimes led to claims that management simply cannot oversee such a sprawling organisation.
In 2012, HSBC was fined $1.9 billion for aiding the laundering of money from Mexican cocaine gangs, one of the most extraordinary banking scandals ever.
A lack of management oversight from far away was seen as part of the problem.
Today, HSBC said it is doing well enough to launch a $3 billion share buyback. That follows a $5 billion buyback earlier this year. An interim divi of 10 cents a share will be paid.
Profit for the first six months fell slightly to $21.6 billion – better than analysts had forecast.
HSBC set aside $346 million for potential loan defaults, mostly related to the property market downturn in China.
Quinn said: “After achieving a record profit performance in 2023, we had a strong first half financial performance that reflected our strategy execution and revenue diversification over the past five years,” Quinn said.
“We remain confident that we can deliver attractive returns, even in a lower interest rate environment, as a result of macroeconomic trends that play to our strengths, market-leading businesses connecting high-growth markets that we are continuing to invest in, and ongoing cost discipline.”
HSBC has introduced what it calls a “structural hedge” against moves in interest rates which should reduce volatility in returns.
In general, its returns under Quinn have underperformed large European rivals.
