Alexi Chan and Jean-Marc Mercier have been appointed as global co-heads of debt capital markets effective immediately, according to an internal memo seen by FinanceAsia.
In their new roles, Hong Kong-based Chan and London-based Mercier will succeed Bryan Pascoe, who will become HSBC’s group treasurer effective May 5. They both will report to London-based Spencer Lake, global head of capital financing.
Chan, who has been head of DCM for Asia-Pacific since 2013, will continue to look after his former responsibilities as well. Mercier, meanwhile, has been global head of debt syndication at HSBC since 2010.
The latest appointments arrive on the heels of the British bank’s announcement on April 25 that it is reviewing whether to keep its headquarters in the UK, more than two decades after moving to London from Hong Kong.
The domicile review was prompted the recent rise in the government’s bank levy – a charge on UK lenders’s balance sheets introduced in 2010 to offset the cost of the financial crisis for taxpayers.
Last year, HSBC paid $1.1 billion as part of the levy on its forward earnings basis, with JP Morgan calculating the levy would cost the bank 9% of its profits.
In terms of DCM capabilities, HSBC continues to lead the league table ranking, raising as much as $9 billion worth of dollar-, euro- and yen-denominated bonds as of April 24, according to Dealogic data.
HSBC has been on some landmark deals in recent weeks, including Sinopec’s $6.4 billion multi-tranche bond on April 22, Asia’s largest ever dual-currency bond offering and the largest bond deal from a Chinese state-owned enterprise.
The bank was also on Malaysia’s $1.5 billion dual-tranche Islamic bond on April 15.
