Top executives of HSBC Holdings PLC met with the bank’s shareholders in Hong Kong on Tuesday and sought to convince small investors that splitting off its Asian business wouldn’t benefit them.
HSBC Chairman Mark Tucker and Chief Executive Noel Quinn, who had traveled from London and went through a mandatory seven-day quarantine in the Asian financial hub, joined hundreds of attendees in a large convention hall on the Kowloon waterfront, across the harbor from the British bank’s office building in downtown Central. Outside the meeting venue, people held placards and banners with messages calling for changes at HSB, and for the bank to protect the interests of its minority shareholders.