HSBC Reviews Moving Headquarters From London on Regulation

HSBC Holdings Plc, less than two weeks before Britain’s general election, said it’s reviewing whether to move its headquarters out of the country because of rising tax and regulatory costs.

A move to Hong Kong, viewed by analysts as the bank’s most likely destination should it relocate, would unpick a structure that’s existed since the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. acquired Britain’s Midland Bank Plc in 1992. A transfer should cost no more than $1.5 billion because HSBC still has a base in the former British colony, said Chirantan Barua, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd. in London.