Money Games

Chapter 16Lion's Chase

“Shan, how have you been lately? Can I invite you to a coffee to catch up?”

The familiar voice betrayed a hint of an Indian accent. It was Chandra from HSBC. The call came on September 17, 2004. I had not spoken with him for almost a year. At that time, he had approached me to express HSBC's interest in acquiring KFB, but HSBC called off the talks a couple of months later as abruptly as it had approached us. What now?

Chandra, or K. B. Chandraseka, was responsible for corporate strategy and development at HSBC. Indian by origin, he was a 26-year veteran of HSBC, which he had joined at the age of 25. He had led the negotiations for a number of the bank's strategic investments, including those in China's Bank of Communications and PingAn Insurance Group, both of which were great successes. He was experienced and shrewd, and his deals had worked out very well for his bank over the years.

Chandra did not leave me in suspense for long.

“Shan, we want to talk with you again about buying Korea First Bank. We are seriously interested.”

I needed to be sure. “I thought John Bond wasn't interested,” I told him. Sir John was chairman of HSBC. “Do you have the authorization to speak with us?”

When Chandra had reached out to me the year before, I met with him and the new CEO of HSBC in Asia, Mike Smith, to hear them out. Mike had just been transferred from HSBC Argentina. He asked, rhetorically, “Why couldn't we have done a similar deal to buy this bank back in 2000?” ...