Heat on HSBC boss Mark Tucker for living in New York

HSBC’s chairman is under fire for choosing the US as his base as the bank continues a make-or-break shake-up.

Mark Tucker, 64, has been criticized for orchestrating HSBC’s turnaround from his home in New York – despite the bank being based in the UK and making most of its money in Asia.

Analysts and MPs were concerned that Tucker, a former professional footballer for Wolverhampton Wanderers, was in danger of losing contact with most shareholders and clients as the bank faces a crucial turning point in its history.

The lender faces a campaign from its largest shareholder, Beijing-backed insurer Ping An, to split it into its Asian and Western divisions.

And investors, dissatisfied with years of lackluster performance, are watching closely for signs of improvement at the bank after Tucker promised a radical shake-up.

But eyebrows have been raised over the fact that Tucker, who lived in Hong Kong during his former position as head of Asian life insurance firm AIA, is based neither in London nor Hong Kong.

Tory MP Bob Seely, who sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said: “I wonder how feasible it is in the long run to have your CEO live in a different time zone, and away from most of his colleagues and clients ?

New York is not Hong Kong and it is not London. If he doesn’t want to stay in the UK, he’s not the only banker who can take on a UK bank.’

Referring to the Conservative Party’s decision to suspend MP Matt Hancock for appearing in I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here, Seely added: ‘If Matt Hancock will struggle to get his constituency out of the jungle I dare say Mr. Tucker may be in trouble. running a company from another continent.’

HSBC’s top management is split between London and Hong Kong – and while the lender has a presence in the US, it has sold off its US mass-market retail banking business.

It is understood that Tucker began to spend more time in the US during Covid, before moving there permanently with his wife Janet, with whom he has two children.

A former adviser told the Sunday Times that Tucker thought the UK was ‘a petty country and it wanted to get out there’.

Seely said, “I couldn’t think of why [Tucker] thinks London is parochial compared to New York. The financial sector in New York is dominated by the US market, while London has an incredibly global footprint.”

An HSBC spokesman said: “There is no stipulation in Tucker’s contract as to where he must live.”