Another top DCM banker resigned from HSBC's US business

As we have reiterated often, HSBC may be backing slowly away from its M&A and equity capital markets businesses in Europe and the US, but it's still wedded to its debt capital markets (DCM) business globally. It's unfortunate, then, that HSBC's DCM bankers have been resigning. 

The latest to disappear is understood to be Jessica Gough, the bank's head of US corporate debt capital markets. Sources at the bank say Gough has tended her resignation. HSBC didn't respond to a request to comment.

Gough has spent 26 years at HSBC, having joined in 1999 in Argentina. She made managing director (MD) in 2014 and has been running corporate DCM in the US for the bank since 2014. 

Her resignation will seemingly leave a hole. It follows that of Nils Hansen, a managing director on the US investment grade syndicate team, who left HSBC for in March and of Connor McCaffrey, a vice president on the FIG DCM syndicate team in London, who's understood to have resigned last week.   

HSBC's DCM bankers have been complaining of poor bonuses and insufficient recognition in the reorganised business, which is supposedly focused on their area. Lisa McGeough, chief executive officer of HSBC US, said in March that leveraged finance and DCM were "really amazing jewel of the crown type of businesses (sic)," but not everyone's feeling it.  

There is also grumbling in the US about senior figures in the DCM business, some of whom are newish to HSBC. They include US head of DCM, Patrice Altongi, who spent two decades at Citi before joining in 2021.  

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