On Stephen Green, HSBC boss

A hellfire sermon for HSBC’s boss

27 October 2007

Matthew Lynn says shareholder activist Eric Knight is right to castigate HSBC’s strategy, and that the bank’s deeply religious chairman Stephen Green now faces a battle to hang on to his job

When he isn’t running the world’s second biggest bank, Stephen Green, the chairman of HSBC, is an ordained priest and amateur theologian. In 1996 he published Serving God? Serving Mammon? Christians and the Financial Markets, in which he explored whether you can do the Lord’s work whilst also commuting to Canary Wharf every morning to do battle in the boardroom and kick ass on the trading floor. ‘Christians can serve God in the world of finance and commerce, but it is also possible to fall into the trap of serving Mammon there,’ he wrote. ‘Yet the kingdom of God can be found in the thick of the markets.’

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A J Scott

October 25th, 2007 5:28pm Report this comment

Many of us prefer a slow-growth (and that is a very relative term if you look at HSBC over the last 40 years)operation to some trendy approach (look at Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch etc right now. And Knight Rincke have what shareholding in HSBC - what %age? And he /they are telling us shareholders what we want. Get stuffed, I say. Go back to packaging CDOs which you have been so good at. A J Scott

andy

January 18th, 2009 2:34pm Report this comment

when you now (Jan,09) look back, it's not hard to realize that tho HSBC made "certain mistakes" which Matthew found himself quite clever in criticizing, those mistakes are not much at all comparing to UBS he mentioned. I can remember HSBC was the first to admit their mistakes and announce losses quite honestly to the public comparing to L.bros and many others who tried very effort to buy time for their own escape.
Regardless an opinion being right or wrong, I advise Matthew to have more comprehensive research more quoting basic fact and a couple of easily gathered figures attempting to support his "opinions". There's a big difference b/w small mistakes and righteous goals. It does little good to do no small mistakes but messed up one's goals. After all, it's not more mammon...

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