One voice that should be heard
If Peter Wong Tung-shun is disappointed not to have a seat on the main board of Standard Chartered Bank, he is doing a good job disguising it.
But notwithstanding the cheerful protests to the contrary from Mr Wong - who said the decision was at his own request - questions remain after yesterday's announcement.
The decision means the man responsible for delivering a little under half of the group's profits, as well as taking charge of the vital expansion proposed in the China market, will not be present when the group's top decision-making body meets.
True there are precedents for that. HSBC's Aman Mehta, chief executive of HSBC Asia Pacific, a position virtually identical to the one Mr Wong now holds, is on the board of HSBC Corp but not the group's main board.
But that was not the way things had been run at Standard Chartered until now, and Mervyn Davies, Mr Wong's predecessor, was on the main board. And since he was running a business contributing 42 per cent of group earnings, that seemed a perfectly natural appointment.
Then there is the fact that Mr Wong retains - in addition to assuming overall responsibility for the bank's operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China - his old job of running the consumer banking business for the group in Hong Kong.
That is a significantly greater load of managerial responsibilities than Mr Davies was charged with (his seat on the main board apart), and it came as little surprise when Mr Wong conceded in an interview with the South China Morning Post that an announcement in this regard was 'forthcoming'.
The delay, given the emphasis Mr Wong says he plans to place on his China responsibilities, may not be good for morale among those who believed they were in line for the job.
In addition, yesterday's brief announcement was silent on the question of who does get the vacant seat on the main board, created when Mr Davies left his post in Hong Kong in November to take over as group chief executive after the departure of Rana Talwar.
Privately, some officials said Mr Davies needed more time to make this appointment, though it has now been two months in the pipeline.
Mr Wong does get a seat on the board of an operating subsidiary of the group - Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) - and argues this is almost the same as a seat on the main board. But excluded from SCB are operations in emerging markets of Malaysia, Thailand, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.
The failure to appoint Mr Wong to the main board means its Asian representation now looks worse, which could reignite criticism that the constitution of the board is an anachronism - a throwback to empire and gentlemen's clubs.
Total pre-tax profit for the group in 2000 amounted to GBP949 million (about HK$10.49 billion), of which the largest share - GBP341 million, or 36 per cent - was generated in Hong Kong.
Pre-tax profit in other Asia-Pacific countries amounted to GBP245 million, lifting the Asian contribution to GBP586 million, or about 62 per cent of group pre-tax earnings.
Mr Wong, meanwhile, continues to put a brave face on the criticism. China was not as developed when Mr Davies was in Hong Kong, he says (that was until November last year).
Now China is in the World Trade Organisation, regulations are changing by the day, and it will require huge amounts of time to keep close to those changes and mainland officials, he says. Hence his request to be free of main board responsibilities.
But for precisely all of those reasons, the market may well conclude, Mr Wong's voice should be heard on the main board.
