Lady Bracknell would have something to say about the current proclivity of the British high street banks for losing chief executives.
First it was John Varley at Barclays, then it was Eric Daniels at Lloyds and next it may be Michael Geoghegan of HSBC, who has threatened to quit if he is not appointed chairman. Are you sitting comfortably, Stephen Hester of Royal Bank of Scotland?
HSBC is, of course, a lot more than a British clearing bank – it has that status by virtue of having swallowed up Midland Bank. But it is a UK-quoted bank that was forced to shift its headquarters to London by the Bank of England to acquire Midland in 1992.
Reading between the lines of the FT story (I have no inside knowledge) it seems as if Mr Geoghegan’s move to Hong Kong last year was as much a tactic to site himself in the correct part of the world to succeed Stephen Green as HSBC chairman as a strategic move for the bank.
Mr Green’s early departure to join the UK government has thrown all that into disarray and the prospect that John Thornton, formerly of Goldman Sachs, might take the chairmanship instead so riled Mr Geoghegan that he boiled over.
The FT’s story sums it up thus:
However, people close to Mr Geoghegan said he might well not follow through on his threat to leave. “He has a famously hot temper,” said one. The final decision about the succession is due to take place at a board meeting in Shanghai next Tuesday.
Oh to be a fly on that boardroom wall.
