Headcount is not changing, but a number of senior staff are taking on new positions, including Robin Phillips, who is returning to London to head the new Client Coverage unit and will therefore be replaced as head of GBM Asia. He will also deputise when needed for Samir Assaf, the CEO of GBM.
Phillips' move looks like a step up, although he was already co-head of global banking in addition to his Asia title. But the other co-head, Kevin Adeson, is now being moved to be a vice chairman of GBM, focusing on senior relationships and what Assaf called in a memo to staff "important growth initiatives".
The primary capital markets area of HSBC's GBM business will be named Capital Financing. Assaf said that the division would "house the primary products that clients need to support their capital structure as Basel III encourages a shift towards more capital markets-based financing models."
Another division, Markets, will contain all the sales, trading and other secondary markets operations, as well as research. The other GBM divisions — Securities Services (HSS), Payments and Cash Management (PCM) for GBM clients, and Balance Sheet Management — remain unchanged.
"In three key aspects that differentiate us in the competitive landscape – our clients, our products and our geographic reach – the business has progressed significantly [over the last few years]," Assaf told staff in the memo. "However, there is scope to do better and to do more."
Broader staffing is not much affected: Assaf said that there would be no change to headcount as a result of the new structure. But there are a few other tweaks to senior managers' roles, in addition to the moves for Phillips and Adeson.
Jose-Luis Guerrero and Spencer Lake, the current co-heads of global markets, will now individually run the other two new divisions. Guerrero will take Markets, while Lake will head Capital Financing.
Patrick Nolan, head of GBM Americas, and Mohammad Al Tuwaijri, head of GBM MENA, will remain in their positions. All the senior team report to Assaf.
HSBC's new product-agnostic structure is one that many firms have adopted in recent years, and is in part a reaction to the way in which banks' clients now tap the capital markets. The sophistication of clients is increasing, and as it does so, the traditional silo mentality within many of them — whereby a CEO might concern themselves with the company's share price and strategic direction, including M&A, while the debt position would be the territory of the treasurer — is gradually disappearing.
One way in which banks are responding to that is to ensure that the lines of communication with a client are as focused as possible. That typically means having a division that just handles relationships but is able to patch the client into whichever part of the bank's offering is relevant to any one client situation.