Unicredit Boss Mustier Emerges as Contender for HSBC CEO Role
Unicredit Boss Mustier Emerges as Contender for HSBC CEO Role
(Bloomberg) -- UniCredit SpA Chief Executive Officer Jean Pierre Mustier has emerged as one of the main external candidates for the top role at HSBC Holdings Plc.
The French executive has been in talks with Europe’s biggest bank about the job, according to people familiar with the matter. HSBC’s board remains undecided, and is still considering candidates including interim chief Noel Quinn, one of the people said.
A spokeswoman for Mustier declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for HSBC.
UniCredit shares fell 2.9% in Milan. Mustier has run the Italian bank for four years, and has been credited with turning around its fortunes.
HSBC said this week that it could take until August to name a replacement for John Flint, who was ousted last year as Chairman Mark Tucker intensified his efforts to revive growth. Until recently, it had appeared that the job would go to Quinn, the man Tucker originally tapped as a stop-gap replacement.
But the London-based bank held back on announcing a new CEO this week when it presented its strategy update -- a plan that will eliminate 35,000 jobs over the next few years. The firm said it would shelve buybacks for two years, sending its shares down by the most in a decade.
Mustier, 59, has cleaned up UniCredit’s balance sheet and cut about 14,000 jobs. The Italian bank’s shares rose more than 30% last year, outpacing most of its European peers. As UniCredit’s performance has improved, it has allowed Mustier to give more ambitious targets: this month, the lender said it may accelerate plans to return a greater proportion of profit to shareholders.
That success has led to his name being in the mix for other top European banking jobs. Deutsche Bank AG considered Mustier as a replacement for John Cryan in 2018 -- a post that eventually went to Christian Sewing.
While the bulk of his career has been spent at a major French lender and an Italian one, Mustier has held senior banking roles in London before. He spent a decade in the British capital for Societe Generale SA and once ran its corporate and investment bank.
Mustier also has experience in Asia, where HSBC makes about half its revenue and wants to generate even more. At SocGen, Mustier spent time as an investment banker in Hong Kong and Tokyo as part of a 22-year career.
Taking the HSBC job could lead to a significant up-tick in Mustier’s pay. While Mustier earned about 1.2 million euros ($1.3 million) in 2018, Flint earned 4.6 million pounds ($5.9 million) in the same year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
HSBC Timetable
HSBC’s Tucker said Tuesday said he expected to make an appointment within the “original timetable” of six to 12 months that he set out following Flint’s departure. Among the candidates Tucker approached was former Citigroup Inc. global consumer banking head Stephen Bird, but the Sunday Times reported this month that he ruled himself out of the running.
In its third strategic overhaul in a decade, HSBC will slash about 15% of its total jobs over the next three years and take $7.3 billion of charges as it cuts operations in the U.S. and Europe. The firm plans to double down on Asia, but signaled that more bad news was still to come once the firm assesses the economic damage wrought by the coronavirus.
The bank had already been facing a series of headwinds before the outbreak. The U.S.-China trade war has weighed on the lender for more than a year, while prolonged political protests in Hong Kong have further disrupted one of its most profitable markets.
--With assistance from Ross Larsen.
To contact the reporters on this story: Harry Wilson in London at hwilson57@bloomberg.net;Geraldine Amiel in Paris at gamiel@bloomberg.net;Ambereen Choudhury in London at achoudhury@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam at sbhaktavatsa@bloomberg.net, Keith Campbell
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