Household HSBC Watch

HSBC, which derived about 80 percent of its pretax profit from outside the U.K. in the first half of this year, moved to London 13 years ago following its purchase of Midland Bank Plc, one of Britain’s top four banks at the time. The Bank of England ruled that HSBC would only be allowed to take over Midland if it transferred to London, the South China Morning Post reported at the time.

The former Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. was created in 1865 to finance trade between Europe, India and China. The lender now has more than 9,500 offices and a presence in 76 countries and territories worldwide.

The Guardian newspaper earlier reported that HSBC might move its headquarters from the U.K. for tax reasons, citing Chris Spooner, the bank’s head of group financial planning.