HSBC Chairman Flint Echoes Investors’ Bond Liquidity Worries
HSBC, which makes most of its profit in Asia, said earlier this year it had started a formal evaluation of its domicile in response to a rising U.K. levy and tougher regulation.
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HSBC Holdings Plc Chairman Douglas Flint said the clampdown on banks’ trading arms by regulators is contributing to concern by the world’s biggest investors that liquidity could vanish in a bond-market selloff.
“We wanted banks to shrink their trading operations and they did,” Flint said at a conference organized by Swiss Re in Rueschlikon, Switzerland on Tuesday. “Now we’re worrying about how much more liquidity is available to long-term investors for their illiquid assets, and hence their appetite to take on such assets.”