LONDON: HSBC could decide whether to move its head office out of the UK by the end of the year, the boss of Britain’s biggest bank said as he warned that the chancellor’s bank levy made it impossible to maintain its payouts to shareholders.
Stuart Gulliver also conceded that the bank’s reputation has been damaged and the morale of senior staff knocked by the revelations about the tax evasion strategies adopted by its Swiss arm. The bank took a $139m charge for potential legal actions related to the operation as it published its first-quarter results on Tuesday.
Last month, the bank announced it was reviewing its London head office – where it has been based since 1992 after buying Midland bank – or move it elsewhere, with Hong Kong seen as the most likely alternative.
Gulliver, who was speaking from Hong Kong, said the bank would set out its methodology on comparing locationsat a strategy day on 9 June but the executive team aimed to make its presentation to the board by the end of the year.
He said the announcement was meant to be apolitical although it has been interpreted as a warning to politicians during the UK general election campaign. HSBC employs 266,000 staff across 70 countries.
This is not a threat, it’s a very objective review,” said Gulliver, whose personal use of a Swiss-based bank account was contained in the leak of bank customers’ details published by the Guardian and other publications in February.
He admitted to being vague on the timing of the relocation decision but said: “it’s going to take us a few months, not years.”
There have been doubts about whether the Hong Kong Monetary Authority would be capable of regulating HSBC, which is about nine times the size of the territory’s GDP, but Gulliver countered this.
