Noel Quinn will be a hard act to follow at HSBC

Restructuring HSBC, like painting the Forth bridge, is a never-ending job. While Noel Quinn has done well, the board must not make another ham-fisted transition.

Announced this morning, HSBC’s first-quarter results were decent enough – better than most analysts had expected on income and cost.

But while analysts combed through the earnings release to update their models, the rest of the world focused on the one issue that didn’t rate a mention in its 54 pages: Once again, and sooner than expected, chairman Mark Tucker is searching for a new chief executive.

Noel Quinn has been an excellent leader of HSBC, the bank where he has worked for 37 years.

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