ABSTRACT
When the 1998 first half-year’s results were announced to the HSBC Group’s staff, the headline in their house organ read ‘Strength in our diversity’.2 Writing of the economic downturn now popularly referred to as ‘Asian flu’, the Chairman of HSBC Holdings plc, John Bond, said, ‘While economic difficulties in Asia have affected our business, increased profits from our operations in the Americas and Europe vindicated our strategy of geographical diversification.’ Some few months later, with a world economic domino effect threatening, this comment could be taken without query, but in August an employee or shareholder whose original connection was with or in, say, Britain’s Midland Bank, might well have asked whether the comment was directed at the ‘Group’ as a whole or rather at that portion of it originating in Asia, that is, the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd (HongkongBank or HKBL), reflecting indeed the origin of the Chairman.3
