The London-headquartered bank has just gone through the biggest overhaul in at least a decade that saw its investment banking operations retreat from the Americas and Europe in favor of Asia and the Middle East. The revamp has also resulted in hundreds of job cuts, the departure of many top executives and streamlining of layers of management.
The future of HSBC Holdings is in Asia and the Middle East because of the amount of wealth and the capital flows between the two regions, according to the top executive who heads the British lender’s corporate and institutional banking.
“You have had two regions that have had an enormous amount of capital,” Michael Roberts told Bloomberg Television in an interview on Monday, adding that’s a significant and permanent trend. “The interesting thing is the amount of money in the Middle East. We have underestimated that. You have a reordering of the world’s capital flows.”
