HSBC pulling out of British Cycling?

Just seen this:

Exclusive:
I understand HSBC has decided to end its long-term lead sponsorship of British Cycling after the Tokyo Games.
It has apparently decided to exercise a break clause in its contract just 3 years into a 8 year deal.
Major financial blow for the governing body

— Dan Roan (@danroan) February 25, 2020

when the sponsorship deal between British Cycling and HSBC was originally announced in January 2017, it was supposed to be for 8 years!

Wonder what’s going on behind the scenes…

would’ve thought being associated with a healthy, social and relatively environmentally friendly sport would be great PR for a bank rife with scandal and an attrocious environmental record.

What have HSBC done and how much have they actually invested to promote MTB?

Wonder what’s going on behind the scenes…

They’re losing money, making tens of thousands of redundancies and restructuring to focus on Asia rather than western markets.

I imagine the farcical Freeman tribunal and the picture it portrayed of BC helped convince HSBC that this might not entirely be the scandal-free friendly sport that it was looking for.

When you’re letting 35,000 employees go then spending a lot on sponsorship seems a bit callous I guess.

But yeah, there are massive cost-reduction pressures. It’s an easier sell to spend that money on making sure their service is robust and driving regulatory compliance than it is on touchy-feely sporting associations.

3 years is a long time, never mind 8. HSBC are openly in a bit of bother financially and operationally so things like Sponsorships are always bound to be the first to go.

would’ve thought being associated with a healthy, social and relatively environmentally friendly sport would be great PR for a bank rife with scandal and an attrocious environmental record.

Well it doesn’t seem to have worked on you, so perhaps it didn’t work on the general public either.

Reassuring to know!

its on the BBC too. I guess most of the HSBC funding went to track but its worrying as I imagine BC will end up clawing more money out of the other cycling disciplines to make up any shortfall; so greater event levies etc making running events less and less achievable for clubs.

Fingers crossed another sponsor will be easily found.

…like Ineos

…like Ineos

Can’t sponsor a British based WT team and the British governing body, that’d be a major conflict of interest!

There really aren’t many companies with the financial clout to come up with £10m / year, you’re looking at an incredibly small pool of potential sponsors…

There really aren’t many companies with the financial clout to come up with £10m / year, you’re looking at an incredibly small pool of potential sponsors…

Sky?

Maybe it’s part of Sick’s big announcement…

Or have Rocky Roads been accumulating a fortune behind the scenes?

Maybe Rich Energy are looking for another big deal after their fallout from F1…

Well it doesn’t seem to have worked on you, so perhaps it didn’t work on the general public either.

It always has with me. But I’m a bit of a sucker for that sort of thing.

Fuji Film sponsored the World Cup in Mexico in 1986, and consequently every time I saw their red, white, and green colours after that, I was a fan. Until the end of film, that is.

Same with HSBC. Good associations = uncritical affection. 🙂

I feel a bit bad about shattering your illusions in that case…

Banking Giant HSBC Sheltered Murky Cash Linked to Dictators and Arms Dealers

A quick look into the past of their current ‘Global Head of Public Affairs’, Sherard Cowper-Coles doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that they intend to change their ways:

Still, he’s clearly an esteemed member of the British Establishment, having held such valuable roles as Ambassador to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, no doubt doing his utmost to promote peace throughout…

I feel a bit bad about shattering your illusions in that case…

Banking / Finance has always been the industry for shady Toffs looking to make (another) fortune, or to give their mates a “couple of hundred thou a year” for ‘Board Positions”.

They also couldn’t give two-shits about where the money comes from, as long as it’s not explicitly going to get anyone sent to prison. It’s not illegal to work for Dictators, unless there’s a trade embargo and that’s easily passed by circumvention and it’s not illegal to be an Arms Dealer per-se.

In fact, sometimes it can be really beneficial to work for Evil types. A lot of Switzerlands Banks became very rich when the people who were stashing gold taken from the mouths of dead Jews with them were sentenced in the Hague.

There really aren’t many companies with the financial clout to come up with £10m / year, you’re looking at an incredibly small pool of potential sponsors…

Err, it’s £10m per Olympic cycle not per year so £2.5m/year.

HSBC are openly in a bit of bother financially

Yep, only £10bn profit last year. I know I know…

They go through rounds of well publicised job losses and then quietly undertake large scale recruitment; this time it looks like more permanent headcount reduction
Profits look substantial at £10bn but are down by about a third on previous year; a few years ago they were at c£20bn.
UK isn’t particularly important to them – no real growth prospects unlike Asia where they make most of their profit so their focus is now very clearly on the FarEast.
As for sports sponsorship, it’s superficially attractive with a feel good factor but is unlikely to have generated any financial return for them; most of theses types of agreement have a break clause and they’ve exercised it.
This, combined with washing their dirty linen in public – see martinhutch’s post up there ^^^ – would have made it an easy decision for them.

UK isn’t particularly important to them – no real growth prospects unlike Asia where they make most of their profit so their focus is now very clearly on the FarEast.

Important enough the global head office is still in London and they built a separate and very substantial new ring fence bank hq. Asia appears to be the most profitable though so some of the other markets are going to be seeing the cuts. Also more likely to be the investment bank that sees more of these than the corporate bank.

They also couldn’t give two-shits about where the money comes from, as long as it’s not explicitly going to get anyone sent to prison. It’s not illegal to work for Dictators, unless there’s a trade embargo and that’s easily passed by circumvention and it’s not illegal to be an Arms Dealer per-se.

In fact, sometimes it can be really beneficial to work for Evil types. A lot of Switzerlands Banks became very rich when the people who were stashing gold taken from the mouths of dead Jews with them were sentenced in the Hague.

The above is a bit of a sweeping statement and sounds like it’s fuelled by comments made in the press. Yes in the past there has been a lot of this – but broadly the banking industry is cleaning its act up bit by bit. Still a way to go yet and not every bank is driving this agenda as hard as others. Banks like BNP for example have pulled out of banking industries like tobacco etc and there is a growing effort to look harder at the sustainability angle.

Oh gawd, whilst there must surely be some ethical banks out there, really wish you hadn’t mentioned BNP…

Now, aside from their role in the somewhat unfriendly Nuclear Weapons Industry:

"How can BNP Paribas say that it’s time to divest from tobacco and fracking, yet not be divesting from nuclear weapons?" Food for thought & action ✊ via @PressenzaIPA ➡️https://t.co/cz6IMCGwbh #Dontbankonthebomb #nuclearban

— ICAN (@nuclearban) August 23, 2018

Along with triggering the 2008 Financial Crisis

Ten years ago, the French bank BNP Paribas froze three of its U.S. funds. The financial crisis followed. https://t.co/zHyxZIom7I

— Marketplace (@Marketplace) August 14, 2017

They also happened to be Bankers to a certain Saddam Hussein:

Which is no big surprise as the Chief Shareholder of BNP Paribas, Nadhmi Auchi, has long ties to the Ba’ath Party and Saddam Hussein:

Funnily enough, he’s also tangled up with some fairly big hitters in the Scottish Tories, among others:

This from the memoirs of Sir Malcolm Rifkind (ex head of the Intelligence and Security Committee no less):

Of course, a busy man like Malcolm Rifkind can’t be expected to know all these little details!

Perhaps it’d be the kind of thing that might interest National Security Advisor, Mark Sedwill…

It wouldn’t be a Jive thread without a major excursion off piste into the murky world of conspiracy theory and innuendo.

Got any pics of royals to go with that lot?

To be fair though, combining the words “big hitters” with “Scottish Tories” was amusing.

What is a ‘jive thread’ and which of these facts do you take exception to sir?

It reads like a jhj post.

As do a lot of his other posts. Maybe it is just a trait of conspiracy theorists

Do all conspiracists live in Scotland too?

Makes you think.

So no one is refuting the facts then?

Don’t fact checkers check the source of the information first?

Sources are provided…

Has anyone got a photo of JHJ and BMS together? Preferably with another notable public figure who can be linked to just about anyone else via a series of press photos?

Blimey, I’m beginning to think you might be on to something…

did a forum search for ‘HSBC British Cycling’ and found this old thread:

Melanie Shaw

and what do you know, bigmountainscotland has also recently been posting tweets from this @oldtomyoung guy…

whatsmore, look at his latest tweet:

Philip Rutnam has resigned eh?

Can't imagine why…

When will Mark Sedwill be resigning?https://t.co/OQ8vdhyf6F

— Tom Young (@OldTomYoung) February 29, 2020

Can’t help but wonder if it might be something to do with this…