Clifford Chance, He Ping Law Firm, Slaughter and May, Linklaters and Kirkland & Ellis are participating in HSBC Holdings’ HKD106 billion (USD13.6 billion) plan to privatise Hang Seng Bank, a deal likely to become one of the largest in Hong Kong’s M&A market in a decade.
Through a scheme of arrangement, HSBC Holdings’ subsidiary HSBC Asia-Pacific is set to acquire all remaining shares in Hang Seng. Following completion, Hang Seng will delist from the HKEX and become a wholly owned subsidiary of HSBC. The transaction is expected to close by mid-2026.
Under the proposal, HSBC Asia-Pacific will acquire the remaining stock for HKD155 per share in cash, which is 33% more than Hang Seng’s average price during 30 days before 9 October, when stock trading was paused ahead of the privatisation announcement. The average price was around HKD116.5.
Clifford Chance assembled a cross-regional team spanning its London, Hong Kong and New York offices to advise HSBC Holdings and HSBC Asia-Pacific on the transaction. The team is drawing on expertise from the firm’s M&A, financial regulatory, debt and US capital markets groups. Partners Richard Crosby, Virginia Lee, Tommy Tam and Alex Bidlake are jointly leading the deal team, with support from partner James Bole.
He Ping, Clifford Chance’s China-affiliated firm, advised HSBC Holdings and HSBC Asia-Pacific on PRC financial regulatory matters, with head of regulatory compliance Kimi Liu as leading counsel.
Slaughter and May are acting as Hang Seng’s counsel, with partners David Watkins, Lisa Chung and Vincent Chan leading the team.
Linklaters is advising the joint financial advisers to HSBC, BofA Securities and Goldman Sachs, with partner Roger Cheng leading the team. Kirkland is advising Hang Seng Bank’s financial adviser, Morgan Stanley Asia, with its team led by Joey Chau and Brian Ho.
Founded in 1933, Hang Seng was acquired by HSBC during Hong Kong’s 1965 banking crisis. Since then, its business scale has expanded significantly. Prior to the proposed acquisition, HSBC Holdings had already owned approximately 63% of Hang Seng’s shares.
HSBC’s latest move to consolidate resources and restructure is being seen as a response to clean up Hang Seng’s piling bad commercial real estate debt.
