HSBC Restructuring May Hit WNY

Basically this doesnt make me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside and the delay in knowing an answer just adds to that. From a locality standpoint it doesnt seem like multi-nationals are anything the communities they are located in should be too high on because I just dont trust the commitment and loyalty. Home grown and regional businesses are the best way to maintain more community friendly fully invested employers. If industry is no longer appropriate as the area has been pitched by economists over decades and now financials and other "new economy" industries dont fit either then what? Geez!

"Booker said the plan is to 'right-size branch network to concentrate on areas with strong international connectivity.' "

Translation: expect to say goodbye to a large number of those 5000 jobs.

I wish these huge corporations would be honest for once: "We screwed up. Buffalo was our home because it was cheap. Now that we helped tank the economy and destroy the housing market, we're not so sure. Since we never really wanted to be here in the first place, we're going to start 'rightsizing' our operation."

No one knows what is going to happen. How much of HSBC operations in Buffalo is built in support of the branch network? The article doesn't answer that question.

Either way, HSBC is going to grow in the coming years, just in a different way. The city needs to give them a reason to stay and to grow in Buffalo.

I wouldn't raise any alarms yet. Rather, as I've said a million times on here the mayor should be on a plane to London to discuss how Buffalo can help HSBC reduce costs and restructure.

Buffalo is an international city for trade and transportation, import and export, customs, etc between the US & Canada.

Unfortunately, Buffalo just does not seem to know how to leverage that into business growth so no one should be suprised that HSBC doesnt do it either.

Buffalo is still myopic and insular...looking inward rather than outward. Hey, in some ways it makes Buffalo a really great medium sized city&medium sized personality with big city amenities. We get the best of all worlds so to speak.

Unfortunately this also means Buffalo does not rise to the occassion of excellence...we lag in business and technology and entrepreneurship and innovation.

The changing global economy that appears to change like the weather and jump on the band wagon of the next big thing every 10 years or so? Our economy is like pop music nowadays and it comes at the expense of hundreds of thousands if not millions of individuals who have to keep changing just to keep up and oh by the way the middle class is being gobbled up in the meantime as well as incomes continue to stagnate or fall and costs continue to rise. But change is good right! Yeah! 30K college degrees every 10 years to jump on the next "hot" bandwagon industry to make some "boom" bucks on before the bottom falls out again. Just ride the student debt right into the grave! Its gross. People are just pawns for overly ambitious profit expectations in the stock market. International business as in wheres the next country to exploit for resources and cheap labor? Sorry...I prefer slowly but surely where the vast majority can live their short lives (and life IS short) in relative comfort, able to provide for their families and upkeep their neighborhoods rather than the cut throat world of screw the other guy. Tell me how the effect of this potential international business decision is much different than the impact Bethlehem Steel's closing had on the area? If HSBC disappears from the landscape I wonder what would have happened if Marine Midland hadn't been sold out for whatever deal was made and profits pocketed by a select few?

Hopefully Buffalo's inexpensive property values and the city's incentives will make it more attractive to a company looking to save money. HSBC leaving would set the city back 20 years.

The more important issue is that if they abandon WNY & shutdown the arena, where will the Sabres play?

While job losses are most likely going to result from any "restructuring", I seriously doubt HSBC would totally pull out of Buffalo.

HSBC obviously chose Buffalo b/c it has a skilled workforce, cheap land and proximity to international airports. In the end, that would be a reason for them to retain the Buffalo location rather than downsizing it.

I worked for nothing but large multinationals while I lived NYC, all of which by the end of my time there were abandoning the city proper for smaller city areas like Stamford, White Plains, Trenton, Charlotte etc for their large scale office operations.

Even if HSBC does decide to leave, there will be another company presently HQ'd in a major city which will likely take the opportunity to relocate its back office operations to a cheaper location like Buffalo.

As if Buffalo can handle any more job losses being the 2nd worst to find a job in that recent survey. Let the brain drain continue as there are simply not enough jobs to make use of a require college education here as it is.

HSBC's North American operations haven't produced a positive roe since 2004. Their inability to leverage their global brand in the states is what led to this. So to make their angry shareholders happy they're dumping the unit over the side. But don't fret too much: word is they may move their HQ out of London and back to Hong Kong. The key is: what's next? Who will take the branches and make a go of it?

Please cut it out....the toxic pessimism is exactly why companies dont think of Buffalo as capable of international business.

The truth is that Buffalo has by its geography been by definition an international city. Its companies are already international and our infrastructure is already international.

Buffalo will not create a Port Authority for international trade for our harbor, will not consolidate its bridges, will not mirror the success of its Life Sciences Center for Excellence in other areas like Banking&Finance, Transportation&Trade, Internet&ECommerce, Material Science&Nanotechnologies....

Buffalo-Niagara should have 5 such centers for excellence pursuing their own viability...

All good points.... Run for mayor.

City Hall is an awfully large building to have almost nothing come from it. What do they do there all day.....Count parking tickets?

You could tell HSBC was not in Buffalo for the long haul when they would not spring for anything more than a painted plywood sign at the top of the tower

I think its finally time for Buffalo to erect the Arch of Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and International Shrine of the Holy Innocents. Once that goes up, all problems will be solved.

People are so shocked by this HSBC announcement. However, we all tend to forget, we (meaning the consumer)are the major contributor of this downsizing debate.
Most consumers do there banking ONLINE. Hence this reason alone is the main area of downsizing branches. To pay for structures, staff, and overhead along with it to service a smaller base does not make sense financially.
I didn't see mass anxiety when Verizon quitely removed essentially all coin operated telephones from our lives. Can you even find a payphone anymore? People adapted.
The branch structure, yes, will be hardest hit. Along too with the fact, do you really need to staff floors 6-29 at the HSBC Tower? In all likely hood, no. The days of multiple people doing tedious work is over, replaced by technology and one person with a desktop PC. This is the fact of life in the 21st Century.
We are striving to become more efficent with technology, and with that comes the unfortunate downside of it ultimately effecting the same workers.
When I was a kid, and I was only born in 1980, we still had rotary phones, basic 3 color TVs, cable was something "rich" people had. Think about the advances in just the last 30 years?
Who could have thought we'd have cellphones that are mini computers? That was something only relegated to Dr. McCoy and Star Trek. Or we'd have automobiles that can self park?
So I'd guess there gonna lose some jobs in Buffalo/Depew, yet we can only fault the consumer.

Good points on the last few posts; the robots are indeed taking over and if we don't adapt to this reality we're doomed!

Increased mechanization and automation means we can produce a helluva lot more with less and less human labor. The specter of technological unemployment will come to define the role of people in industrialized societies in the 21st century. Capitalist dogma states that we all must sell our labor for income in order to eat, drink, be sheltered and consume goods.

The great contradiction of this mandate becomes all-to-apparent when technology becomes so productive that far fewer hands on deck are needed to run (human labor input) the industrial system than there are people who depend on its output.

Oops, look like we have to switch to a new operating system or else we need to be prepared for large hordes of dispossessed people who don't have the necessary skills, social connections, luck or inherited privilege to be economic participants competing for an ever-dwindling inventory of jobs.

HSBC's Newspeak-termed "restructuring" is merely one example of this greater ongoing trend. The world has entered a period of prolonged economic contraction. The whole "growth" myth is a huge fallacy. All you faithful believers have been hoodwinked.

It's time we slow things down, shift away from the cult of the job, do away with the labor-for-income contradiction and learn how to utilize our productive capacity to support the best life for as many people as possible. The Koolaid jug is running dry. We can make a much tastier beverage.