HSBC brought all this on itself. The world’s third-largest bank by market capitalisation used to have a clear division of responsibilities: the chairman set the strategy, and the chief executive delivered it.
That changed a year ago, when the bank announced that chief executive Michael Geoghegan was to move from London to Hong Kong, taking responsibility for strategy with him. Stripped of his main reason for being, chairman Stephen Green became a minister without portfolio; a book tour here, an honorary doctorate there. It was no wonder his head was turned by the offer of a real job.
Admittedly, that old dual-headed structure had been a work in progress: for the first 127 years of its life HSBC had no chief executive at all. But it had served the bank well enough since 1992, when the takeover of Midland in the UK meant HSBC had to kowtow to local rules.