HSBC going to start Investing Banking Business

HSBC Holdings Plc is halfway through a five-year plan to build an investmentbankingce ntralbusiness. HSBC is the world's third-biggest bank by market value, wants to add global capital markets and merger advisory businesses to its corporate lending to boost profit. The bank has hired about 2,000 bankers, raising pay rates and spending to break into the top tier. But despite some successes, its progress in the league tables so far has been limited. HSBC combined various businesses in 2002 to form the corporate, investment banking and markets (CIBM) division. A year later it hired former Morgan Stanley dealmaker John Studzinski to run the business with HSBC veteran Stuart Gulliver and made CIBM a key plank of its plan for growth. CIBM made 27 percent of HSBC's $17.6 billion pretax profit last year. The division had total assets of $583 billion at the end of 2004, and its clients include 70 percent of the Fortune 500 list of the biggest U.S. companies. This article is sponsered and published by investmentbankingce ntral