A complete relocation of portfolio has already taken place at the merged entity. HSBC Capital Markets had a fine first year and has already broken even in its very first year of operations. The broking outfit has been merged with the investment bank to tap the synergies especially on the research front. HSBC group sources revealed that the investment bank, now much larger, has taken two key decisions: To work more closely with the commercial bank and concentrate on a narrow band of key clients rather than trying to rope in just any client.

A top source at the merged entity said that EuanMcdonald would be the chairman of the merged entity, while Raman Sidhu would be senior director. Sonal Dave, who was responsible for financial compliance at the securities outfit has been appointed the chief operating officer in the merged entity. Navneet Singh will be head of human resources, while Balakrishnan who was earlier in corporate advisory would be director, equity capital markets.

Sanjeev Mohta will continue to head the research department. Gautam Raj who was director corporate advisory has been redesignated director (relationships) while Vija Kumar will be director (investment banking). "The whole idea of the merger was to prioritise research, which although a part of the securities outfit, was of utmost value to the investment banking arm. "

"The focus will be on working together with the commercial bank. As of now, a bank's clients are going to other investment banks for their fee-based needs. There is little cross selling taking place. We are not fully leveraging on the combined strength ofthe commercial and investment bank. This will start happening now. The other area of change will be to concentrate on a narrow band of key clients. earlier, we were willing to take on any client as we were still to establish ourselves. Now that we have turned in a great performance in the first full year of operations, we are going to concentrate only on key clients," said the source.

HSBC Capital Markets was established after the group functioned through a liaison office for over four years. Over an year, it expanded to set up offices in Mumbai, Calcutta and Delhi, with a staff strength of over 100. The brokerage arm had a joint venture with a Mumbai-based brokerage outfit of the Morarkas. This joint venture fell through last year.