HSBC Appoints Co-Heads of Leveraged and Acquisition Finance for the Americas.

NEW YORK -- HSBC today announced the appointment of Tom Cole and Dan Toscano as co-heads of leveraged and acquisition finance, Americas. Cole and Toscano will be responsible for all aspects of the bank's leveraged and acquisition financing activity in the region from origination to distribution and trading. In addition, Cole will become head of U.S. financial sponsors coverage.

Cole and Toscano will lead HSBC's efforts in the Americas to extend and expand the bank's capabilities in event driven investment grade and non-investment grade financing, including leveraged buyouts and corporate acquisition financings, refinancings, recapitalisations, restructurings and bridge financing.

Both bring considerable experience to HSBC. Most recently, Cole was group head of leveraged finance at Deutsche Bank in New York. Toscano was head of senior debt capital markets at Deutsche Bank in New York.

They will report functionally to Kevin Adeson, global head of leveraged and acquisition finance at HSBC and regionally to Paul Lawrence, head of corporate, investment banking and markets (CIBM), North America and to Thierry Roland, chief executive officer, HSBC Securities (USA) Inc.

"These appointments represent a further expansion of our global leveraged and acquisition finance platform following recent appointments in Europe and Asia," said Kevin Adeson. "With HSBC's strong, stable capital base, this is a natural business for CIBM which compliments our existing equity and debt financing businesses."

Paul Lawrence added, "These appointments demonstrate our commitment to supporting a leading leveraged finance platform in the Americas and will enhance our ability to deliver financing to help our corporate and financial sponsor clients' achieve their strategic objectives."

Both will be based in New York and will join in January 2008. Michael McGovern, current head of leveraged and acquisition finance in the US will continue to manage the group through the end of the year and will take on a new senior role in January.

Notes to editors:

HSBC Corporate, Investment Banking and Markets (CIBM) provides tailored financial products and services to major government, corporate and institutional clients. Within client-focused business lines, Global Banking and Global Markets, CIBM offers a full range of capabilities, including foreign exchange, fixed income, equities, derivatives, risk advisory, corporate and investment banking, equity sales and trading, and equity and debt capital markets. For more information on CIBM, please visit www.hsbcnet.com.

HSBC Holdings plc

HSBC Holdings plc serves over 125 million customers worldwide through around 10,000 offices in 83 countries and territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa. With assets of some US$2,150 billion at 30 June 2007, HSBC is one of the world's largest banking and financial services organisations. HSBC is marketed worldwide as 'the world's local bank'.