Financial advisor Paul Bonello has said that HSBC has no righ to prejudice tens of thousands of small shareholders' life savings.
"The Maltese Bank is not theirs alone and if they sell they must sell at the fair market value by way of the right multiple of the Bank's consistent, maintainable and sustainable annual earnings, well above the Net Asset Value per share," Bonello said.
He was reacting to an announcement by HSBC Bank Malta that it has obtained consent from shareholders to allow it to disclose, in confidence, information, including unpublished price-sensitive information, to prospective bona fide offerors and the prospective bona fide transferor (HSBC Continental Europe) in connection with a potential transaction involving a substantial shareholding in the company.
The bank said that any decision to sell or otherwise rests with the majority shareholder, HSBC Continental Europe (HBCE), not HSBC Bank Malta p.l.c.
In a post on Facebook, Bonello said that the general body of shareholders has shown very clearly the extraordinary general meeting held yesterday "that they are fully aware of the crucial matters surrounding this saga of the sale of HSBC Malta by its parent company. The anger at what appears to be cooking in the kitchen was and remains palpable."
HSBC Holdings must appreciate that the Maltese retail shareholders who hold between them 30% of the Maltese subsidiary are intelligent and assertive shareholders who are not going to allow any one - HSBC Holdings in primis, but not only - to oppress the minority and trample over their rights, he said.
The Maltese shareholders in HSBC Malta shall not permit some firebrand sale - whether to some Maltese wolf in sheep's clothing who might have been negotiating with them in stealth for many, many months to further their greed and ambition, or to some other overeas operator - to ride roughshod over their rights.
HSBC could sell their French operation at any price they may have liked, even for a nominal consideration of €1 being the sole shareholder in that situation, Bonello wrote. "But the situation in Malta is very different and they must operate with full respect of the minority shareholders' rights in a security listed on a regulated market, a systemically important domestic bank in full financial health. Indeed observance of the law, in form and in spirit, free of any market abuse or manipulation by any interested third party, and in a manner that meets all legitimate expectations of shareholders in an EU member state is the least to be demanded."