George Osborne, the former chancellor, has emerged as a shock contender to become the next chairman of HSBC Holdings, one of the world’s top banking jobs.
Sky News can exclusively reveal that Mr Osborne, who was chancellor from 2010 until 2016, was approached during the summer about becoming the successor to Sir Mark Tucker.
This weekend, City sources said that Mr Osborne was one of three remaining candidates in the frame to take on the chairmanship of the London-headquartered lender.
Naguib Kheraj, the City veteran who was previously finance director of Barclays and deputy chairman of Standard Chartered, is also in contention.
The other candidate is said to be Kevin Sneader, the former McKinsey boss who now works for Goldman Sachs in Asia.
It was unclear this weekend whether other names remained in contention for the job, or whether the board regarded any as the frontrunner at this stage.
Mr Osborne’s inclusion on the shortlist is a major surprise, given his lack of public company chairmanship experience.
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With a market capitalisation of almost £190bn, HSBC is the second-largest FTSE-100 company, after drugs giant AstraZeneca.
The bank has been looking for a replacement for Sir Mark for nearly a year, but has run what external critics have labelled a chaotic succession process.
Sir Mark, who has returned to the helm of insurer AIA as its non-executive chairman, stepped down at the end of September, but remains an adviser to the board.
Brendan Nelson, the former KPMG vice-chairman, became interim chair of HSBC last month and will remain in place until a permanent successor is found.
If he got the job, Mr Osborne would be a radical choice for one of Britain’s biggest corporate jobs.
Since stepping down as an MP, he has assumed a varied professional life, becoming editor of the London Evening Standard for three years, a post he left in 2020.
Since then, he has become a partner at Robey Warshaw, the merger advisory firm recently acquired by Evercore, where he remains in place.
If he were to become HSBC chairman, he would be obliged to give up that role.
Mr Osborne also chairs the British Museum, is an adviser to the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and is chairman of Lingotto Investment Management, which is controlled by Italy’s billionaire Agnelli business dynasty.
During his chancellorship, Mr Osborne and then prime minister David Cameron fostered closer links with Beijing in a bid to boost trade ties between the two countries.
“Of course, there will be ups and downs in the road ahead, but by sticking together we can make this a golden era for the UK-China relationship for many years to come,” he said in a speech in Shanghai in 2015.
Mr Osborne was also reported to have intervened on HSBC’s behalf as it sought to avoid prosecution in the US in 2012 on money laundering charges.
The much cooler current relationship between the UK – and many of its allies – and China will be the most significant geopolitical context faced by Sir Mark’s successor as HSBC chairman.
While there is little doubt about his intellectual bandwidth for the role, it would be rare for such a plum corporate job to go to someone with such a spartan public company boardroom pedigree.
His lack of direct banking experience would also be expected to come under close scrutiny from regulators.
HSBC’s shares have soared over the last year, rising by more than 50%, despite the headwinds posed by President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs regime.
When he was appointed, Mr Tucker became the first outsider to take the post in the bank’s 152-year history – and which has a big presence on the high street thanks to its acquisition of the Midland Bank in 1992.
He oversaw a rapid change of leadership, appointing bank veteran John Flint to replace Stuart Gulliver as chief executive.
The transition did not work out, however, with Mr Tucker deciding to sack Mr Flint after just 18 months.
He was replaced on an interim basis by Noel Quinn in the summer of 2018, with that change becoming permanent in April 2020.
Mr Quinn spent a further four years in the post before deciding to step down, and in July 2024 he was succeeded by Georges Elhedery, a long-serving executive in HSBC’s markets unit and more recently the bank’s chief financial officer.
The new chief’s first big move in the top job was to unveil a sweeping reorganisation of HSBC that sees it reshaped into eastern markets and western markets businesses.
He also decided to merge its commercial and investment banking operations into a single division.
The restructuring, which Mr Elhedery said would “result in a simpler, more dynamic, and agile organisation” has drawn a mixed reaction from analysts, although it has not interrupted a strong run for the stock.
During Sir Mark’s tenure, HSBC continued to exit non-core markets, selling operations in countries such as Canada and France as it sharpened its focus on its Asian operations.
HSBC has been contacted for comment, while Mr Osborne could not be reached for comment.
In late September, HSBC said in a statement: “The process to select the permanent HSBC Group Chair, led by Ann Godbehere, Senior Independent Director, is ongoing.
“The company will provide further updates on this succession process in due course.”
