{"id":150371,"date":"2023-03-26T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mediaintel.asia\/?p=915723"},"modified":"2023-03-26T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-03-26T00:00:00","slug":"investors-force-hsbc-shareholder-vote-on-structural-overhaul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/2023\/03\/26\/investors-force-hsbc-shareholder-vote-on-structural-overhaul\/","title":{"rendered":"Investors force HSBC shareholder vote on structural overhaul"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MediaIntel.Asia\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Hong Kong investors have forced HSBC into a shareholder vote on its structure and strategy, including a potential spin-off of its Asian arm.
\nAn investor group, led by the minority shareholder Ken Lui, said the bank\u2019s Asian activities were \u201ceffectively subsidising the western businesses, to the detriment of HSBC\u2019s global shareholders\u201d in a way that undermines efforts to increase the bank\u2019s value and growth.
\nIt is not the first time that this shareholder group has sought to split apart the bank\u2019s Asian and western businesses. Lui heads a group that campaigns for the move and which took out newspaper adverts calling for such a change last year.
\nIt followed a public intervention calling for HSBC to break off its Asian arm by the Chinese insurer Ping An, which holds a stake of more than 8% in the bank, also in 2022. However, there has been no confirmation that Ping An will back Lui\u2019s group in its latest move.
\nLui is an HSBC minority shareholder who rallied other small investors to form a campaign group in favour of spinning off its Asian businesses. He runs an education company, in Hong Kong, according to Reuters.
\nIn the notice to shareholders ahead of its AGM on 5 May, first reported by the Sunday Times, the board recommended that investors vote against an Asian spin-off, saying it had already considered \u201cstrategic reorganisation, and restructuring of the company\u2019s Asia businesses\u201d in 2022.
\n\u201cThe board concluded that all of these structural reforms would significantly dilute the economics of our international business model upon which our strategy is based,\u201d it said. \u201cThis would result not only in a material loss of value for shareholders but also lower dividends.\u201d
\nShareholders are also to vote on another resolution tabled by Lui, which demands that the bank return its dividends to pre-Covid levels. Asian investors grew frustrated after the bank\u2019s 2019 dividend was cancelled on the instruction of the Bank of England\u2019s regulatory arm, the Prudential Regulation Authority, in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.
\nskip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Business Today Free daily newsletter Get set for the working day \u2013 we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion
\nHSBC, which makes the bulk of its profits in Asia, reported $5.2bn in pre-tax profit for the last three months of 2022, more than double the $2.5bn it reported for the same period a year earlier.
\nThe relatively robust performance in the final three months of 2022 means HSBC is planning its highest annual shareholder payout in four years \u2013 worth 32 cents a share.<\/p>\n

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hong Kong investors have forced HSBC into a shareholder vote on its structure and strategy, including a potential spin-off of its Asian arm.
\nAn investor group, led by the minority shareholder Ken Lui, said the bank\u2019s Asian activities were \u201ceffectively…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[669,586,325,113,339,194,106,100],"tags":[3472,10324,4519,10315,8864,10328],"class_list":["post-150371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bank","category-economy","category-education","category-google","category-hong-kong","category-news-chinese-law","category-search-engine","category-website","tag-chinese","tag-covid-19","tag-hsbc","tag-media-intelligence","tag-news-media","tag-pandemic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150371"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150372,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150371\/revisions\/150372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}