As anyone who has played Civ4 knows, everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it.
But yeah, they surely should have been able to find someone willing to pay 100-10000% more than that.
But yeah, they surely should have been able to find someone willing to pay 100-10000% more than that.
So if sold for 1 GBP, it's literally a steal.
HSBC has a huge Sterling reserve buffer that can easily accommodate that exodus. (Essentially HSBC UK becomes the depositor of last resort in SVB UK).
Remember that the issue with SVB was that it was taking duration risk when it hadn't the deposits to match that duration. The HSBC parent company can easily provide that duration.
Cashflow issues kill profitable operations. They kill banks in double quick time.
Banks, at the end of the day, are just that: brands built on the belief that they will survive long enough to not lose your money. Once that belief goes, once the brand is over, a bank run is automatic and the bank dies.