Knight Vinke today renewed its assault on HSBC’s strategy, saying Britain’s biggest bank was regarded by many shareholders as a disparate collection of poorly connected business trying to be all things to all people.

The activist fund manager, which has the full backing of the powerful California pension fund Calpers, also blasted the bank for its handling of the US sub-prime implosion, saying the market had failed to fully take into account the risk being taken on to the HSBC balance sheet.

In another broadside, it accused the board of using “unclear and possibly misleading language” in describing an executive bonus plan which had the flaw of rewarding executives even in cases where shareholders were no better off.

It said its concerns were shared by other institutional investors, with 10 having so far contacted Knight Vinke asking for a meeting or more details of its case since it announced its campaign on Friday.

HSBC had failed to achieve market leadership in any market outside Hong Kong and had failed to exploit synergies, with most of its individual country businesses run as independent silos, it said.

“As a consequence, we believe that many investors … still regard HSBC effectively as a holding company for a collection of disparate and poorly connected business which … generally lack scale,” it said in a letter to Stephen Green, HSBC’s chairman. There was a perception that “HSBC lacks focus and that the ‘world’s local bank’ is seeking to be all things to all people.”

HSBC had no comment.

Popularity: 3% [?]

No related posts.