ABSTRACT
In the topmost reaches of management in the Hongkong Bank - finally the only level at which the issue could be decided - there is little evidence that Michael Turner and then Jake Saunders were working to an exact, step-by-step plan of integration. Certainly they were keen to create opportunities and savings wherever possible, but this did not mean that they or their advisers had a fixed view of the end result. Indeed, they had emphasized the Mercantile's distinct identity during and after the acquisition. In the case of the Nagoya branch in Japan and in their planning for the Indian branches, for example, they continued to treat the Mercantile as a bank in its own name and in its own right. As Turner and G. 0. W. Stewart pointed out to Frank King, the bank's historian, 'they knew little about mergers at the time, they learned as they progressed' .1 The extent of integration would be shaped and adapted en route rather than following a predetermined path.
