HSBC loses bankers as Beijing chill continues

HSBC (0005) has lost about a third of its debt capital markets team covering Chinese state-owned enterprises, a sign the bank is still struggling to win back favor in Beijing.

The departures in recent weeks include two managing directors, John Hai and Jiang Song, who led client coverage of Chinese investment-grade issuers including SOEs. Two other bankers on HSBC's China investment-grade team, are also leaving.

HSBC began missing out on dollar bond deals from SOE clients after the bank became entangled in a US probe of Huawei Technologies' finance chief in 2018.

China Baowu Steel Group, the world's largest steelmaker blacklisted 60 lenders that the state-owned steel giant had declared off-limits, including HSBC. The reason for the move, one of the executives explained, was the Huawei incident.

HSBC has fallen to 12th place so far this year from second in 2020 among managers of investment-grade dollar bond deals in China.