September 13, 2024 12:45 GMT
FINANCIALS: HSBC In Talks To Sell An SA Business; No Spread Impact Seen
FINANCIALS
HSBC (HSBC: A3/A-/A+) is in talks to sell a South African business; we expect this to be immaterially small but is in line with strategy.
- HSBC reportedly (BBG) in talks with FirstRand (FSRSJ: Ba1/BB-/BB-) to sell its corporate banking unit. HSBC doesn’t specifically break out its business in the country, but we’d expect this to be immaterially small for a group the size of HSBC.
- Even before the recent CEO change, HSBC has been streamlining and cutting country exposures (much as Citigroup is doing), so this is in line with stated strategy.
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