Georges Elhedery
Group CEO, Member of the Group Management Board & Executive Director
Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much, Peter, for this introduction and for hosting us today, and welcome, everyone, to One QRC, One Queen Road Central to the bank that’s known as the Hong Kong Bank. We — all of you have seen this iconic building. We celebrated 40 years, was it 2 months ago. We had Lloyd Foster, Norman Foster with us for the celebration. It was one of the highlights of his career, probably one of the starters of his career. Actually, what you’ve also seen in the video, some of you know, 161 years ago in exactly that same spot, we set up the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. In March in Hong Kong, a few weeks later in Shanghai, within 10 years in most of Asia. Within a year, we were already in Osaka and Kobe. We were within a few years in, well, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand or [indiscernible] China or Malayia or the [indiscernible], et cetera, et cetera.
But I think what’s important when you look at that history is that, number one, we were set up by our customers. We were set up by those merchants, those entrepreneurs, those shipping companies who needed a bank that served their needs. They needed a bank that has their trust and they needed a bank that was focused on delivering what they needed and what their ambitions are. They need a bank that is relationship driven. They
