LONDON – HSBC chief executive Noel Quinn said on April 30 that he plans to step down, marking the surprise departure of a hard-nosed leader who has overseen a raft of asset sales, guided the lender to record profit and lifted its share price.

The bank is aiming to complete the succession process in the second half of 2024, with both internal and external candidates to be considered.

Chief financial officer Georges Elhedery is likely the leading internal candidate for the job. The former head of the bank’s markets business was appointed to the No. 2 role more than a year ago.

Mr Quinn, 62, who has been in the job for five years, said he wanted a better work-life balance and planned to move into a portfolio job.

“I’ve held intensive leadership roles since I took on a commercial bank role in October 2008, so I’m personally ready for a change,” he told reporters on a conference call.

“It’s also a natural inflection point for the bank, as it comes to the end of the current transformation phase. It’s an ideal time to bring in leadership to move the bank forward over the next five years.”

HSBC’s shares, which have gained roughly 30 per cent during his tenure, rose 2.5 per cent in London against a benchmark FTSE index up 0.3 per cent, having earlier touched a nine-month high in Hong Kong’s afternoon session.

Mr Quinn has boosted the bank’s returns by cutting underperforming businesses in the West, including retail banking businesses in the US and France, its entire Canadian subsidiary and units in smaller markets such as Argentina.

“He took the reins just as the pandemic was spreading across the world, a hugely uncertain time to lead a global bank and pivot away from its more traditional markets. He’s also had to navigate geopolitical tensions between the US and China,” said Mr Matt Britzman, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

“He may be a hard act to follow, but market reaction suggests the strong position he leaves behind is enough to quell any uncertainty about who’ll lead the business from here,” he added.

Mr Quinn will remain as CEO until his successor starts in the role, and has agreed to remain available to the end of his 12-month notice period expiring on April 30, 2025, the bank said.

Some HSBC staff also believe that Mr Nuno Matos, currently the bank’s global head for wealth and personal banking, could replace Mr Quinn, according to a senior HSBC executive with direct knowledge of the bank’s China strategy and business.

Mr Quinn, who joined HSBC in 1987, was named chief in March 2020, after serving as an interim CEO following the ouster of his predecessor John Flint, who had been in the job for less than two years and had failed to stem a sharp share price decline.

Mr Quinn’s challenges included a regulator-induced suspension of HSBC’s dividend payouts which enraged many retail shareholders, and pressures on the bank’s business customers as trade and supply chains faltered worldwide.

He also won a major showdown with the bank’s No. 1 Asian investor, China’s Ping An Insurance, which ran a multi-year campaign to try to get HSBC to spin off its Asia business. The campaign ended in defeat at the bank’s shareholder meeting in 2023.

Amid escalating US-China political tensions during Mr Quinn’s tenure, HSBC also faced criticism from lawmakers in the US and Britain who said the bank should have resisted pressure from Beijing to freeze the bank accounts of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, among other issues.

HSBC at the time said it was merely complying with local laws.

HSBC on April 30 also reported pre-tax profit of US$12.7 billion (S$17.3 billion), slightly ahead of forecasts, for the quarter ended March versus US$12.9 billion a year earlier, as it struggled to cope with rising costs from its expansion in Asia.

In 2023, it logged an annual record profit of US$30 billion.

The London-headquartered bank also announced US$3 billion worth of share buybacks, on top of US$2 billion in share purchases announced in February.

The bank said it continued to target a return on average tangible equity in the “mid-teens” for 2024, with banking net interest income of at least US$41 billion. REUTERS