HSBC underlined its long-held commitment to making the most of its commercial banking relationships this week as it outlined a managerial reshuffle in the wake of Wallace Lam's shift into Chinese commercial banking.
Lam, a veteran at the bank, is readying a move to Shanghai to join HSBC’s commercial banking team in China. He was previously head of high yield capital markets and CMB debt origination in Asia Pacific, a key strategic position for HSBC bridging the gap between its commercial and investment banking units.
Underlining the stress HSBC's dealmakers now place on the commercial bank, the bank has picked Daniel Kim as its new Asia-Pacific head of high yield capital markets and CMB debt origination, according to a memo seen by FinanceAsia.
Kim already occupied an important slot in the debt capital markets team, running the financial institutions business. But senior bankers think he can be even more useful in his new job.
Kim’s role in charge of HSBC's Asia FIG business, in turn, is set to be filled by the bank's current head of DCM financing solutions, Sean McNelis — a banker with a stellar reputation among his colleagues.
The reshuffle comes eight months after HSBC picked a new chief executive for its global commercial banking business. Noel Quinn, who has been at the bank for more than 25 years, took the job from Simon Cooper, who left to join Standard Chartered.
Exploiting the possible synergies between commercial and investment banking is an area HSBC has increasingly stressed in recent years.
The bank picked Will Ross as its head of commercial bank origination in Asia Pacific in 2011. A year later, the bank asked origination head Rod Sykes to focus on originating primary deals from its commercial banking clients — albeit while keeping him in the global banking team.
Ross has since left the bank but HSBC’s efforts to create synergies between investment and commercial banking have only gained pace in recent years.
Lam's move to a full-time commercial banking role is an example of that. So is the subsequent reshuffle that is taking place in the wake of his departure.
However, not everyone has done well from the commercial banking push.
Matthew Kirkby, HSBC’s head of large corporate business for commercial banking in the Asia Pacific region, left in March after the bank opted to restructure — scrapping a size-based focus in order to return to a country focus.
