MacArthur Chan's mother was once a big fan of HSBC. She has been invested in the giant bank's shares since the 1970s. Hers is a typical story of how a Hong Kong housewife can leverage a modest household surplus into a small fortune.
Given his mother's successful investment in the bank, it was natural for him to likewise buy HSBC shares when he started working in the late 1980s.
But both mother and son have since lost interest in the stock. This despite the fact that the lender's chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, announced a radical retrenchment plan last week to get the bank back to familiar levels of profitability.
In its interim result announcement last Monday, Gulliver said the bank would lay off 30,000 staff members globally - about 10 per cent from a workforce of 296,000 - by 2013.
HSBC will also exit markets and plans to cut down annual costs by up to US$3.5 billion by 2013.
'What HSBC chief executive Stuart Gulliver told us is how many staff will lose their jobs and how much money it wants to save. But he did not tell about new, profitable business lines and revenues,' Chan says. 'I am not sure the bank can make more money just by laying off staff. If so, all companies would simply fire staff.'
Chan is now more interested in buying mainland banks and infrastructure stocks. 'As investors, what we care is about whether the stock can make money. This is what HSBC failed to deliver to us - its share price been dropping since 2007,' he says.