HSBC to grow investment bank to serve rising demand for IPOs

HSBC will expand its investment banking business to serve the rising demand of companies from Asia and the Middle East for initial public offerings (IPOs), said the co-CEOs of the bank’s biggest profit centre.

The plan aligns with the bank’s restructuring to focus on high-return areas like Hong Kong and India, as well as exit low-profitability markets like Europe and the US.

Hong Kong sits atop the world’s IPO league table, after 27 companies raised US$9.96 billion this year as of last week, according to the London Stock Exchange Group. India’s two bourses – the National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange – ranked fourth and fifth in the same period, with 113 companies raising US$7.72 billion.

“We have taken out the mergers and acquisitions [as well as] the equity capital market [businesses] from the UK and the US markets,” said David Liao, HSBC’s co-CEO for Asia and the Middle East, in an interview on Thursday. “We want to redirect [growth towards a] deeper focus on Asia and intra-Asia opportunities.”

HSBC’s co-CEOs for Asia and the Middle East, David Liao (left) and Surendra Rosha (right), during an interview at HSBC’s head office in Central on June 5, 2025. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Hong Kong, one of the two cities where HSBC was founded in 1865, was a listing market as well as a hub for international investors, Liao said, which prompted the bank to expand its capacity to serve the growing population of wealth management clientele beyond the city’s 7.5 million population.

South China Morning Post