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LAST
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ASK
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NET CHG.
%CHG.
SPREAD
SPX
S&P 500 Index
6857.13
6857.13
6857.13
6865.94
6827.13
+7.41
+ 0.11%
--
DJI
Dow Jones Industrial Average
47850.93
47850.93
47850.93
48049.72
47692.96
-31.96
-0.07%
--
IXIC
NASDAQ Composite Index
23505.13
23505.13
23505.13
23528.53
23372.33
+51.04
+ 0.22%
--
USDX
US Dollar Index
98.970
99.050
98.970
99.000
98.740
-0.010
-0.01%
--
EURUSD
Euro / US Dollar
1.16453
1.16462
1.16453
1.16715
1.16408
+0.00008
+ 0.01%
--
GBPUSD
Pound Sterling / US Dollar
1.33338
1.33347
1.33338
1.33622
1.33165
+0.00067
+ 0.05%
--
XAUUSD
Gold / US Dollar
4222.12
4222.53
4222.12
4230.62
4194.54
+14.95
+ 0.36%
--
WTI
Light Sweet Crude Oil
59.333
59.363
59.333
59.543
59.187
-0.050
-0.08%
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He Was Caught Up in the Financial-Crisis Firestorm. Now He Oversees HSBC. — WSJ
Dow Jones Newswires
By Joe Wallace, Margot Patrick and Ben Dummett
Brendan Nelson brings decades of experience to his new role as HSBC chairman, including as a top auditor to banks that later ran into trouble during the financial crisis.
The bank named the former KPMG executive as its new chair on Wednesday, after a yearlong search for outsiders failed to find a suitable candidate.
The appointment is widely seen as a stopgap because of Nelson's advanced age of 76 and his lack of experience in Asia, where the London-based bank makes a lot of its revenue.
The role, which Nelson had held on interim basis since October, is one of the most demanding in world finance, requiring extensive travel and diplomatic elan to bridge geopolitical divides between the east and west.
The Scot is best known in Britain for running KPMG's global financial services practice during the City of London's go-go years before the financial crisis, after which British lawmakers and others criticized auditors for signing off on failed lenders' financials.
Some of the U.K.'s biggest banks needed government bailouts in 2008 and 2009, and KPMG was caught up in the firestorm of blame. One KPMG client, HBOS, collapsed seven months after an unqualified audit.
Nelson audited HSBC, which didn't need state help but was criticized by some investors for being too slow to register losses from subprime loans, which swelled to more than $50 billion.
"I think the auditors have actually discharged their responsibilities diligently," Nelson told a parliamentary committee in 2009, when lawmakers were examining whether KPMG and its rivals had failed to pose tough questions to banks that were their clients. Nobody saw any clouds on the horizon until late 2007, Nelson said.
As HSBC chair, Nelson takes the reins of a bank whose challenges are less financial than geopolitical. As a financial bridge between east and west, the lender is more exposed than most to conflict, sanctions and the ups and downs of the West's relationship with China.
Nelson's post-financial crisis experience as a boardroom firefighter might serve him well. The Glaswegian was a director of Royal Bank of Scotland in the wake of a government bailout, and of BP as the oil major sought to recover from its Deepwater Horizon disaster.
In winning the job at HSBC, Nelson beat out former U.K. finance chief George Osborne and Goldman Sachs partner Kevin Sneader, said people familiar with the search. Both candidates made final pitches to the bank's board on Monday but lack experience at major public companies.
Nelson was also already in the building, having joined HSBC's board in 2023 before becoming interim chair this fall when his predecessor left the post early. That means he will already be familiar with HSBC's efforts to simplify its sprawling operations and sharpen its edge in the U.K. and Hong Kong.
As a Brit who has long mingled in London's establishment, he could help HSBC's French-Lebanese chief executive, Georges Elhedery, navigate the U.K.'s clubby financial and political scene.
Nelson also has experience dealing with U.S. authorities from his time at RBS, which during his tenure negotiated a $4.9 billion settlement with the Justice Department over the sale of toxic mortgage-backed securities. A person who worked closely with Nelson at the time said executives turned to him for advice during a turbulent period when the board held dozens of emergency meetings a year.
However, Nelson is less au fait with Asian finance and politics than his predecessor, Mark Tucker, a veteran of Hong Kong's insurance industry. That could be a hindrance for a company where the chair is expected to be as comfortable in Beijing as in Washington, D.C., and London.
Nelson probably wasn't first choice or he would have been appointed sooner, said Shore Capital analyst Gary Greenwood.
Nelson is expected by London financiers to hold the post only for a few years.
HSBC said he is the permanent pick having shown excellent leadership this fall. Under U.K. governance guidelines, his term on the board would typically run until 2032, when he will turn 83.
As recently as Tuesday, he was seen as a stopgap. Elhedery told a banking conference that Nelson had ruled out a full term of six to nine years given the stage of his career.
Less than a day later, HSBC had appointed Nelson to the role.
Within hours, attention in London had pivoted to his potential successor. One early favorite: Bill Winters, chief executive of Standard Chartered, another London-based bank with a big business in Asia.
HSBC approached Winters earlier in its search, and he declined, people familiar with the matter said. But Winters, a former JPMorgan Chase executive who was once in the frame to succeed Jamie Dimon, has run StanChart for a decade and indicated he's likely to serve about one more year.
Underlining HSBC's difficulty, though, a StanChart spokesman said Winters is "wholly focused on his role" and that "any suggestion otherwise is unfounded speculation."
Write to Joe Wallace at joe.wallace@wsj.com, Margot Patrick at margot.patrick@wsj.com and Ben Dummett at ben.dummett@wsj.com
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