HSBC chairman search: Former man from the Pru Mark Tucker will replace Douglas Flint
Mark Tucker, chief executive and president of AIA and former boss of Prudential, has been confirmed as chairman of HSBC, marking the first time the bank has appointed an external chairman.
Tucker will receive an annual fee of £1.5m and a one-time relocation benefit of £300,000 for moving from Hong Kong to London. He will take up the position on 1 October.
The lender has previously said it will be announcing a replacement for current chairman Douglas Flint, who has been on the board of the banking behemoth since 1995 and has held the position of group chairman of HSBC Holdings since 2010, sometime this year.
Tucker said: “I am honoured and excited to be taking on the role of group chairman of one of the world’s largest and most prestigious banking and financial services organisations. I have long had enormous admiration for HSBC with its unrivalled network, exceptional brand and leading position supporting global business and trade."
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Tucker's experience at Hong Kong-headquartered insurer AIA, which he joined in 2010, is likely to benefit HSBC, which has a strong focus on Asia itself and was set up in the 19th century as the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.
In addition to Prudential and AIA, Tucker has also had stints as a former director of the Court of the Bank of England, as finance director of Hbos – long before it ran into trouble during the financial crisis and had to be rescued by Lloyds – and as a trainee professional football player.
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It has previously been reported HSBC was close to nabbing Henri de Castries, who became a non-executive director at the bank last March, to become chair. However, the former boss of Axa has always harboured political ambitions, and, with the French election in May, is said to have formally withdrawn from the bank's appointment process in recent weeks.
When HSBC announced its full-year results last month, it not only shocked the market with a 62 per cent plunge in profits before tax but also said it had not drawn up a shortlist of candidates to replace Flint.
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Tucker already has a few prominent items on his to-do list. He'll be tasked with finding a replacement for Stuart Gulliver, the bank's chief executive since 2011.
He will also no doubt play a part in guiding the London-headquartered bank through Brexit. Flint has been vocal about needing more clarity to protect the status of the City as the UK prepares to depart from the EU, as well as warning his firm could need to move as many as 1,000 investment banking jobs elsewhere, most likely Paris, to keep serving clients as usual.
Flint said: “I wish Mark Tucker all the very best as he succeeds me to take on the best job in banking. It has been an extraordinary privilege to serve both as group finance director and group chairman of HSBC over nearly 22 years."