Jake Saunders
British banker
Died when: 84 years 340 days (1019 months)Star Sign: Leo
Sir John Anthony Holt Saunders, CBE, DSO, MC (widely known as "Jake") (29 July 1917 – 4 July 2002) was chairman of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (now HSBC Holdings plc), at a time of rapid and turbulent development of the Hong Kong economy.
In his banking career, as chief manager (effectively chief executive) from 1962, and chairman from 1964 to 1972, Saunders was at the helm of Hong Kong's most important financial institution at a time when the Crown Colony was rapidly changing from a trading post to a regional centre of manufacturing and finance.
The fierce pace of economic growth for Hong Kong was fuelled by an influx of industrious migrants from China and an administration dedicated to laissez-faire tax and trade policies.
From 1966, however, domestic business confidence and dealings with mainland China were severely disrupted by Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution.In 1967 the devaluation of sterling – to which Hong Kong's currency was then fixed – was another blow.
Saunders led the bank through these events with a calming hand.In its centenary year, 1965, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation was offered a majority stake in the Hang Seng Bank, a local retail bank which had suffered a sudden run on deposits after rumours that it was in trouble.
Saunders was out of the colony when the crisis arose, but returned to complete the negotiation.In the same period, he broadened The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation's own customer base to include a new generation of Chinese (often Shanghainese) entrepreneurs, and acquired for the bank an early equity stake in the World-Wide Shipping Group, the shipping empire of Sir Yue-Kong ("Y.K.") Pao, with whom Saunders formed a close friendship.
The bank also invested in the Swire family's Cathay Pacific airline.Its branch network expanded, and it was a frontrunner in computerisation.
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