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HSBC investors reject minority shareholders’ proposal to spin off Asia business, raise dividend payouts
- Minority shareholders had called for the bank to consider radical change, including an overhaul of its structure
- Ping An, HSBC’s biggest shareholder, has also been pushing the lender to make changes to enhance shareholder value
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Chad Brayin Birmingham, England
HSBC shareholders on Friday rejected a proposal by frustrated minority investors to increase the bank’s dividend payouts and radically change its structure in a major affirmation of the lender’s strategy under chief executive Noel Quinn.
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The critical shareholder vote followed a year-long campaign by Ping An Insurance Group, the bank’s biggest shareholder, to shake up the lender and ongoing frustration by some of its Hong Kong retail investors over the cancellation of its dividend three years ago at the request of HSBC’s chief regulator in Britain.
The minority investors, led by Ken Lui Yu-kin, the leader of the “Spin Off HSBC Asia Concern Group”, had called for the bank to consider a significant shake-up to drive shareholder value, including spinning off its business in Asia. They also sought to return the bank’s annual dividend to pre-pandemic payout levels of 51 US cents a share.
“Being global is how we generate a significant portion of our revenues and is central to our whole strategy,” HSBC chairman Mark Tucker said in a speech on Friday before the vote tally was announced. “A restructuring or spin-off would mean that we lose this revenue as our bank would no longer have the connectivity which our customers value.
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“It would not be in shareholders’ interests to split the bank.”
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