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Europe's biggest bank joins peers including JPMorgan Chase & Co
and Morgan Stanley <MS.N> on the deal, which is expected to
raise some $100 billion and is the centerpiece of the Saudi
government's ambitious strategy to diversify away from oil.
HSBC's Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver announced the bank's
appointment on the deal at a shareholders' meeting in Hong Kong,
confirming a Reuters report in February that the bank was close
to being mandated on the hottest investment banking ticket in
the world.
Gulliver also said HSBC is confident it can maintain dividend
payouts in the foreseeable future and expects to exceed
risk-weighted asset and cost-saving targets.
Despite earnings pressure, HSBC has retained its dividend payout
ratio at a higher level in the last few years, at a time when
some of its peers, including Standard Chartered <STAN.L>,
withheld dividend payments for 2016.
The bank may have to move "some thousand roles" from Britain to
Paris depending on how the country's Brexit negotiations with
the European Union unfold, chairman Douglas Flint added,
reiterating the bank's previous estimates of staff moves.
HSBC last month named AIA Group <1299.HK> boss Mark Tucker as
the new chairman of its board, replacing veteran Flint, whose
departure will end one of the longest-serving management
partnerships at a major global bank. CEO Gulliver is also due to
leave in 2018, and one of the main tasks facing Tucker
immediately after taking over the new role in October will be
selecting a new chief executive for Europe's biggest bank.
(Reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee and Donny Kwok, Additional
reporting by Michelle Price,; Writing by Lawrence White; Editing
by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
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