Like a middle-aged man who has already suffered one heart attack, HSBC, along with other red-faced and sweating survivors of the 2008 cardiovascular crisis, needs to lose weight and keep it off. Flabby assets must fall off the balance sheet, and costs must not be allowed to eat up the profits generated by the assets that remain. But its fitness plan goes beyond shedding blubber.
Yesterday, HSBC outlined how it will dissolve a quarter of its body weight, or rather risk-weighted assets, by the end of 2017. Starting from a base of something over $1tn, almost $300bn is set to go. The cuts are half easy and half hard. The easy half involves shedding things that are just non-functional.
More than $80bn of this is unprofitable assets that are already in run-off, like crisis-vintage US mortgage and credit products. The next easy $70bn comes from shutting up shop in Turkey and Brazil.