Page 161 - Bank Case Studies

Under Flint and Gulliver's leadership, by 2018, HSBC had

simplified its organizational structure and reduced its

workforce by about 17 percent to 257,000. (16) Flint and

Gulliver had already pulled the bank out of 77 countries or

businesses through sales or closures since becoming CEO.

They had cut more than $5 billion in annual costs which

allowed HSBC to devote greater resource to its strengths,

namely its Asian and commercial banking business. (17)

Gulliver believed that by hitting most of the targets set since
2015, he had disproved the argument that the bank should

be broken up. “I think we have also dealt with the investor

concern and the regulatory concern that it is too big to

manage,” he said. (18)

Source: FT (18)