ANKARA: HSBC Holdings Plc is among global lenders facing pressure to exit underperforming businesses in emerging markets, with Brazil and Turkey among the countries the bank is more likely to exit sooner than others, media reports speculated over the weekend.
It is not a secret that HSBC Chief Executive Officer Stuart Gulliver is facing pressure to reshape the business focus of Europe’s largest bank.
He recently told investors at a conference call that operations in Mexico, Brazil, the United States and Turkey pose “the biggest problems” for HSBC. The Financial Times said on Saturday that Brazil and Turkey are the first markets from which HSBC will withdraw its retail banking operations. Citing sources close to the bank, the FT said HSBC is in talks with a number of interested buyers for their Turkey operations.
Aside from enduring its worst financial performance in the past five years, HSBC’s overall operations in Turkey and Brazil have been far from meeting expectations. The bank also had been hit by a scandal in relation to a Swiss private bank which helped numerous wealthy clients evade taxes, which might prompt it to cut bad investments from its operations.
