Bond Bull Steven Major Ousted as HSBC Slashes Jobs

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00:00It's time now for the Wall Street Beat. We're talking about another investment bank. We're

00:03looking at HSBC. It's dismissing over two dozen analysts as part of a new restructuring.

00:08And that includes the bank's global head of fixed income research, Stephen Major.

00:13According to people familiar with the matter, the changes are part of the CEO's efforts to

00:17increase efficiency. Joining us now from London, Bloomberg finance reporter William Shah.

00:22Now, you look at these cuts, help us put them into perspective because HSBC, when they have

00:28been looking at reducing parts of their investment bank. It had not been in fixed income.

00:33Stephen Major is a huge name in fixed income. What does this say about their broader strategy?

00:41Well, I mean, in terms of their strategy, so it fits into a kind of broader move by the CEO,

00:45like you said, to pursue efficiencies and streamlining within the company. They're moving to

00:52combine commercial banking and investment banking. And then in the U.S., Britain and in continental

00:57Europe as well, they've shut a lot of M&A and equity underwriting units. So it very much fits

01:05into this wider move in which there's obviously a lot of momentum into cutting back broadly across

01:10the bank. To me, William, it's just so fascinating that they would fire Stephen Major. I mean,

01:15this man has got to be one of the most read voices in the entire global interest rates market, right? I mean,

01:26he makes big calls, often gets them right. You know, we write about him all the time. What do we know about

01:34that? Has he confirmed that HSBC has let him go? And, you know, where where can he go now?

01:39Yeah, I mean, it's confirmed. Like you say, he was like a he was very big. He was a very big beast from our

01:46point of view at Bloomberg. I think I remember when I was on the FX rates team, we periodically write stories

01:51based on his his calls on what the bond market was going to do next. And they'd get huge readership. I mean, I don't

01:57know where he's going to go next. If anything, it just shows their commitment to this kind of this kind of move to cut back

02:03on research. I think that they'd go. They'd they'd cut back on someone so prominent. It's part of a wider

02:10move where within that research business, they're combining macro strategy across fixed income, which

02:16obviously was his ballpark and also asset classes like FX. Now, to give you a sense of how important the

02:24research department was at HSBC, prior to the news today, I think they had about 330 research analysts and

02:31associates and they were covering some 2000 companies globally. So it was like a really big it was a

02:38really big player within research on Wall Street's.