Despite their near-death experience with the mid-March bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Bank and derivatives-sodden Credit Suisse, financial speculators are back at it again—with a vengeance.
It turns out that HSBC—which really doesn’t like people recalling its origins as the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (referred to by some as the central bank of Dope, Inc.)—has hired more than 40 investment bankers who used to work at Silicon Valley Bank before it went belly-up back in March. At the time, HSBC also conveniently stepped in to purchase SVB’s U.K. subsidiary for £1.
On the U.S. side, First Citizens bank bought much of SVB in an auction handled by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The 40 investment bankers that HSBC just hired were thus working for First Citizens after the buyout. But it turns out that HSBC had previously sold its American retail banking network to Citizens Bank, while holding on to its own far more lucrative investment banking side.
