HSBC has hired more than 40 bankers from Silicon Valley Bank to lead a new team in its commercial banking arm, who will target early-stage companies and their investors across technology, healthcare and the innovation ecosystem sectors.
The team will be led by David Sabow, who led technology and healthcare banking at SVB, and includes another three senior executives from SVB: Sunita Patel, Katherine Andersen and Melissa Stepanis.
HSBC said it has assembled a team of more than 40 bankers for the "innovation ecosystems" team, who will be based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston and New York. The unit will sit in its commercial banking division rather than its investment bank. About 42 people have joined from SVB so far, a person familiar with the matter said.
"We are bringing the same sector insight and radical customer centricity that made SVB so special, and marrying this with a fortress balance sheet, venture debt, and sophisticated global product capabilities," Sabow said in a post on LinkedIn.
SVB collapsed in March and was shut down by US regulators after a run on the bank. US regulators last month backstopped a deal for First Citizens BancShares to buy SVB. SVB specialised in lending to technology, healthcare and start-up companies. SVB Financial, the parent of SVB, also owns SVB Securities, the Boston-based investment bank arm that SVB Financial is trying to keep together and sell.
HSBC stepped in to buy SVB's UK arm for £1 immediately after the US bank's collapse. HSBC said the new US team will "be closely aligned" with the UK business it bought, which also served start-up and fast-growing firms, including in technology and life science sectors.
HSBC has scaled back in the Americas. In 2021, it sold the majority of its 148 retail branches in the US, but it kept commercial banking, investment banking and wealth management operations in the country, and in December it agreed to sell its bank in Canada.
"We know that companies are scaling globally earlier in their life cycle and we want to bring the full breadth of our domestic and international capabilities to be the bank for entrepreneurs," Michael Roberts, CEO for the US and Americas at HSBC, said in a statement.
Sabow was at SVB for almost 11 years, and his role running technology and healthcare included leading sales and marketing and business development focused on venture capital relationships. He previously worked for nine years at Cannacord Genuity covering life sciences and healthcare, specialising in public financing and M&A transactions.
Patel will oversee investor coverage and business development across technology and healthcare in the new HSBC team; Andersen will lead life sciences and healthcare; and Stepanis will oversee technology.
Patel was chief business development officer for SVB, and previously led the technology and life sciences division at Comerica. Andersen headed US life sciences and healthcare at SVB, and previously ran life sciences business development for Wells Fargo and worked at Merrill Lynch. Stepanis ran SVB's national technology credit solutions business.
Other banks have also been circling SVB's staff, which could hurt SVB Financial's attempt to keep SVB Securities together. Moelis this month hired up to 10 senior bankers from SVB Securities, including global co-head of investment banking Jason Auerbach, according to industry sources.