BUSINESS WITH PERSONALITY BRITS HEAD JULIA ROBERTS STARS FOR GAMES IN EAT, PRAY, LOVE COMMONWEALTH GETS OK BUT SITE WEEKEND FILM REVIEWS P33 STILL A MESS P38 Issue 1,227 Friday 24 September 2010 www.cityam.com FREE GEOGHEGAN QUITS AFTER MISSING OUT ON CHAIRMAN ROLE Profits hit GULLIVER TO BE CEO • FLINT IS NEW CHAIR • MACKAY TO BE CFO record high at Arsenal ▲ EXCLUSIVE BY FRANK DALLERES COUP▲ AT HSBC ARSENAL will today announce record BANKING BY VICTORIA BATES pre-tax profits of around £55m, an increase of £10m, as the football club HSBC CHIEF executive Michael continues to reap the rewards of mov- Geoghegan is set to step down from ing to the Emirates Stadium. his role before the end of the year to City A.M. understands that the make way for investment banker strong performance of Arsenal Stuart Gulliver, after a boardroom Holdings’ property development arm coup that will rock the banking sector. has driven an increase in revenue. Geoghegan’s ego will be dealt a fur- The north Londoners’ continued ther blow with the appointment of success off the field will see them HSBC’s finance director Douglas Flint record an increase in turnover for the as chairman, a role Geoghegan is fourth successive year since leaving understood to have coveted since Highbury for their new home. Stephen Green’s resignation earlier Pre-tax profit is significantly up on this month. last year’s figure of £45.5m for the HSBC’s nominations committee has year ending 31 May. That improve- submitted recommendations for ment has been aided by strong sales of Gulliver and Flint to the board, paving apartments in the group’s Highbury the way for official approval of the Square Development. It is understood shake-up when the directors meet in that only a very small number of the Shanghai next Wednesday. 655 residences in the club’s former City A.M. understands that Gulliver, stadium remain unsold. the widely-respected head of HSBC’s The success of that project is investment bank, is to move out to thought to have enabled the club to Hong Kong to take up the chief execu- Michael Geoghegan (l) will be replaced by Stuart Gulliver (m), while Douglas Flint (r) becomes chairman Pictures: REUTERS/GETTY pay off the remaining debt on the tive’s role, after Geoghegan relocated development, which at one stage last year to be closer to the beating Thornton, one of HSBC’s non-execu- spent almost three decades at HSBC, Britain’s largest banks, with the resig- totalled £133m, six months early. heart of the group’s operations in the tives, take up the chair in his place. while Flint joined fifteen years ago. nations of both Barclays chief execu- Revenue has also been boosted by emerging markets of the East. Geoghegan had been grooming Iain Mackay, the finance director of tive John Varley, who will be replaced on-field results, with a Champions Flint, as chairman, will remain Gulliver to be his own successor as HSBC’s Asian operations, is set to be by investment banker Bob Diamond, League run earning the club £27m in based in London at the group’s corpo- chief executive and is thought to have named to replace Flint as group and Lloyds chief executive Eric prize money and revenue. Premier rate headquarters. favoured a scenario with himself in finance director, the third cog in the Daniels in the past few weeks. League income rose past £51m, while News of the boardroom shake-up the chair in Hong Kong and Gulliver new management wheel for the bank. Barclays’ and HSBC’s decision to player trading is expected to show a comes after planning for Green’s suc- as a London-based chief executive. HSBC last night reiterated that “no install well-known investment profit of around £30m. cession took a heated turn. Earlier this Despite the upheaval, investors are decision has formally been made”. bankers as their chief executives is Manchester United reported pre-tax week, Geoghegan is said to have likely to be reassured at the prospect The FSA still needs to sign off on the likely to see them come under politi- profits of £48.2m in January while boiled over at the suggestion that for- of two of HSBC’s most capable old moves. They mark the continuation of cal pressure. league champions Chelsea announced mer Goldman Sachs banker John hands taking control. Gulliver has a period of extraordinary upheaval at ALLISTER HEATH: P2 a £44.4m loss in December. t t t t t ▲ Certified Distribution FTSE 100 5,547.08 -4.83 DOW 10,662.42 -76.89 NASDAQ 2,327.08 -7.47 £/$ 1.57 -0.01 £/¤ 1.18 -0.01 ¤/$ 1.33 +0.01 02/08/10 – 29/08/10 is 93,782 2 News CITYA.M. 24 SEPTEMBER 2010 HSBC’s spectacular boardroom row NEWS | IN BRIEF Dubai to launch $1bn bond sale The Kingdom of Dubai will seek to raise about $1bn (£638m) from a bond sale apart from the fact that it now turns being appointed as the firm’s next holders first (after years of neglecting next week, tapping the market for the out that Michael Geoghegan did chairman; promoting from within is a them), rather than pandering to the first time since Dubai World’s $24.9bn indeed fail to land the top job and is tradition that has served the firm UK government’s absurd anti-invest- debt restructuring. HSBC Holdings, therefore standing down. I have no well, helped maintain its strong corpo- ment banking mood. Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered doubt that the firm was acting in rate culture and contributed to the It will be a shame to see Geoghegan have been hired to manage the sale of good faith and that the original denial cautious conservatism which saw it go. He was a hands-on, operations the five to seven-year bonds, which is was technically true – but the fact that through the crisis. Flint is used to deal- man, a down to earth banker who likely to be completed by 27 September. the end result is identical has angered ing with regulators; he ought to per- steered the firm through the credit Dubai’s government last sold bonds ear- EDITOR’S LETTER many journalists and left HSBC with form well as the firm’s new public crisis – it never needed a bailout – and lier this year in October, when the egg on its face. face in London. sorted out the Household mess in the Department of Finance raised $1.93bn ALLISTER HEATH Not that any of this should detract Stuart Gulliver, the firm’s head of US. He did make mistakes, of course: from five year, fixed and floating-rate us from the astonishing and brutal investment banking, is an equally one of his errors was that he mishan- Islamic notes. BIG companies need to get their PR in coup that has just taken place at the good choice as the new chief execu- dled his compensation; nearly a quar- order. BP’s reaction to its oil spill was top of such a large and usually staid tive; a talented and charismatic opera- ter of shareholders failed to back the Verizon to pay dividends in 2012 all over the place at first, with its CEO institution. A bitter and seemingly tor, he built up the bank’s bank's pay proposals for its directors US communications firm Verizon hinted Tony Hayward repeatedly putting his uncontrollable power struggle, trig- sophisticated wholesale and markets earlier this year. But let us hope he it may resume dividend payments at its foot in it; the Prudential failed to com- gered by Stephen Green’s resignation operation, succeeding where his pred- reemerges soon in another role. joint venture with Vodafone in 2012. municate adequately to the media as chairman and appointment as ecessors had failed. Like Bob Following the shake-up at Barclays The company, which holds a 55 per cent and shareholders during its hopeless- trade minister, has torn HSBC’s board- Diamond’s appointment as CEO of and Eric Daniels’ looming departure controlling stake in Verizon Wireless, ly mismanaged bid for AIA. Now, dis- room apart; it goes to show that per- Barclays, it is also a brave choice polit- from Lloyds, it is all change at the top stopped paying dividends in a move appointingly, it is HSBC’s turn to mess sonalities matter immensely, even in ically: Gulliver has earned millions in of British banking. If the government widely seen as an attempt to squeeze up on the communications front. an organization that could run on recent years. To the likes of Vince had any sense, it would use the oppor- Vodafone out. Verizon chief executive It branded as “offensive” a story in auto-pilot most of the time. Cable, the business secretary, this is a tunity to draw a line under its City- Ivan Seidenberg said it would probably another newspaper earlier this week It is good that an HSBC insider – bad thing; it will certainly fuel the bashing rhetoric and acknowledge resume dividends once it had paid off its stating that its chief executive had Douglas Flint, the current chief finan- rage of the populist and left-wing that the UK needs a strong and remaining debt. It has $15bn (£9.6bn) threatened to resign unless he were cial officer and a KPMG graduate who media. Yet the big financial institu- healthy financial industry. One can net debt but generates $1bn in cash a appointed chairman. Fair enough – has worked at HSBC since 1995 – is tions are rightly putting their share- but hope.