HSBC agrees to sell off its Argentina business
By Ione Wells & Robert Plummer
Banking giant HSBC is selling off its business in Argentina at a $1bn (£790m) loss after years of battling with the country’s unstable exchange rate.
HSBC Argentina, which has more than 100 branches and 3,100 employees, will be bought by Grupo Financiero Galicia, a major private financial group.
Annual inflation in Argentina hit 276.2% last month, the highest in the world.
Five years ago, $1 would buy 43 pesos. It is now worth more than 860 pesos.
HSBC has been in Argentina since 1997, when it took full control of the local Banco Roberts and renamed it. That same year, it established itself in neighbouring Brazil by taking over the ailing Bamerindus bank, leading some observers to speak of its “relentless march into Latin America”.
HSBC still holds on in Brazil, but purely as an investment bank: it sold its retail banking operation there in 2015.
Other operations elsewhere in the world have been sold off in recent years as the London-based bank has pivoted to focus more on faster-growing markets in Asia.
HSBC said the sale of its Argentine business, for $550m, will see it book a $1bn loss in its first-quarter results this year.
