As part of a cost-cutting push by Noel Quinn, the temporary chief executive who wants the top job permanently, HSBC Holdings Plc may partly leave stock trading in some established Western markets.
Shares or export units for equities in France, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom are expected to be restructured. According to people familiar with the topic who asked not to be identified, the specifics are personal and they are likely to be scaled back.
The analysis does not impact the Asian equity business of HSBC, the sources added.
The borrower, which comprises the majority of its revenues in the Greater China financial segment, ventures into the reductions as part of a broader strategy to trim down its headcount by thousands through different avenues in its businesses.
The bank also joins European entities to withdraw from equity, including Deutsche Bank AG Chairman Mark Tucker, who is pressing the financial conglomerate to take more aggressive price intervention and appointed Quinn last August after unseating John Flint as chief executive officer.
In New York, sources said, some 45 positions can be given the pink slip. HSBC did not elaborate on the matter. Over the weekend, the United Kingdom Sunday Times revealed that HSBC was re-evaluating its global equity sales and trading platforms.
The bank's shares rose 1.2 percent late Thursday in European trading. For the year, they are still down over 5 percent. In its segment of fixed income, currencies and services, that is dwarfed by the $5.3 billion in income.
Equities are housed within the global banking and equity sector of HSBC, which has seen layoffs through multiple divisions.
Global Banking and Markets holds the corporate finance and trade activities of the company, hiring about 24,000 of the overall 48,500 employees of the division, plus consultants and other support staff.
In the first half, GBM sales dropped 3 percent in the face of historically low spread contraction in foreign currency and debt, the company said in its interim report.
It is predicted that HSBC will ax thousands of jobs around the globe, but will continue to hire in Asia. It is estimated that the new cost-cutting would hit up to 10,000 workers in comparison to the previously announced 4,700 redundancies.
It is part of a global banking phenomenon confronting a low-to-negative interest rate climate and declining investment income. But it also points to the bank's confidence in the growth potential of Asia, especially China. The region already accounts for nearly 80 percent of HSBC's gross profits.
