Greg Guyett oversees a broad range of businesses as the chief executive of HSBC’s global banking and markets unit, a role he took on in October 2022, just before rivals started making deep job cuts.
But he’s looking to grow most of these businesses including investment banking, securities services and transaction banking, he told Financial News in a wide-ranging interview.
The “number one” priority for the bank, though, is getting more institutional clients. This means HSBC is looking to woo sovereign wealth funds and hedge funds, a client group Guyett said competitors have been backing away from.
Not surprisingly, this means building its teams of bankers in the Middle East and Asia, where it has some leading positions. HSBC is also looking to hire more investment bankers, and take on senior dealmakers who can open doors to the C-suite, something the UK lender has typically struggled with as a predominantly debt underwriting house.
Guyett’s expansionary strategy will sound familiar to followers of the history of HSBC’s investment bank, which has hired big-swinging dealmakers to lead huge hiring sprees, only to backtrack a few years later. But Guyett says this is not about taking on big Wall Street banks.
“For a non-American bank, it’s impossible to achieve a leadership position in the United States and the US is the biggest, most lucrative investment banking market in the world,” he said, adding that he has no focus on the global dealmaking league tables.
Separately, we’ve crunched the numbers for most of the major City employers’ UK gender pay gap this year and guess what? Yes, investment banks are the worst of the bunch.
The gender pay gap is a blunt instrument for measuring progress on equality, with most banks saying they pay women the same as men for doing the equivalent job. But it does show a lack of female leaders and a stubbornly low proportion of women in top earning roles within UK-based banks.
Progress is being made, but these figures show how long the road is.
Meanwhile, Royal Bank of Canada has fired its chief financial officer for failing to disclose a personal relationship with a colleague. Nadine Ahn was replaced by Katherine Gibson on an interim basis, the bank said in a statement.
The colleague in question, who was also fired, was given preferential treatment including “promotion and compensation increases”, the bank said.
And JPMorgan has continued to shake-up the leadership of its investment bank following the exit of Vis Raghavan to Citigroup. You can find all the details here.
To contact the author of this story with feedback or news, email Paul Clarke
