The Lion Wakes
Authorised modern history of HSBC, the territory's dominant financial institution.
Summary
The reference has not verified this book in detail; the summary states only what the title, author and subject establish.
Kynaston and Roberts wrote a commissioned history of Standard Chartered Bank, covering the period from the 1960s merger that created it through to around 2013. The reference has not verified the book's detailed contents.
What the subject establishes is the institution. Standard Chartered was formed from the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China and the Standard Bank of British South Africa, both of which were colonial-era banks that took deposits and financed trade across Asia, Africa and the Middle East while being headquartered and listed in London. The resulting bank was unusual: a British-listed institution whose business was almost entirely in emerging markets, with very little domestic retail presence.
The period covered includes the withdrawal from South Africa, the failed attempt to acquire Royal Bank of Scotland in the early 1980s, the subsequent problems including exposure to Latin American sovereign debt and to Hong Kong property, the takeover approach from Lloyds that was rejected, the near-failure and rescue rights issue of 1998, the recovery through the 2000s when emerging market growth favoured its franchise, its relatively good passage through 2008, and the beginning of the later problems.
Kynaston works from archives and is a narrative historian rather than an analyst, and this is an authorised history, so readers should expect chronology and institutional detail rather than critical assessment. The book was published before the full extent of the bank's subsequent difficulties, including the sanctions settlements and the commodity and Asian credit losses, was resolved.
Key takeaways 6
- Standard Chartered was created from two colonial-era banks and remained a London-listed institution with almost no domestic retail business.
- Its franchise was trade finance and corporate banking across Asia, Africa and the Middle East, which is a different business from a domestic universal bank.
- The bank experienced repeated crises from concentrated exposures, including Latin American sovereign debt and Hong Kong property.
- A rights issue in the late 1990s was required to restore the bank's capital position.
- Emerging market growth through the 2000s favoured the franchise and produced the bank's strongest period.
- A London listing combined with emerging market operations creates a mismatch between where the risk sits and who regulates it.
Who should read it
Readers researching the institutional history of Standard Chartered specifically, who should seek independent analysis of its business model.
About David Kynaston
British financial historian; wrote the four-volume history of the City of London and the official history of the Bank of England.
Till Time's Last Sand records three centuries of Bank of England decisions from the institution's own archives, including the reasoning behind rate moves and rescues that later monetary policy was built on. The City of London documents how London's markets, firms and clearing arrangements actually operated between 1815 and 2000, at a level of detail no other account reaches.
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