HSBC Holdings Plc said chief executive officer Stephen Green, who is a director of the Bank of Bermuda, will become chairman, replacing John Bond, architect of more than $46 billion of acquisitions that transformed the company into the world's third-biggest bank by market value.

Mr. Green will take over as group chairman when Sir John, 64, retires in May after 45 years at the company, the London-based bank said in a statement yesterday. Michael Geoghegan, head of the UK business, replaces Mr. Green as chief executive.

Sir John, Mr. Green and Mr. Geoghegan have all visited the Island over the past two years in connection with HSBC's acquisition of the Island's largest bank, the Bank of Bermuda, in early 2004 for $1.3 billion.

Mr. Green, who has served as a Bank of Bermuda director since the acquisition, said during an interview with local media earlier this month, he was committed to visiting the Island on bank business at least twice a year. He has so far visited Bermuda six times since negotiations for the Bank of Bermuda purchase began in 2003.

Outgoing chairman Sir John, who has become the face of HSBC in recent years, has visited Bermuda at least twice ? once in the run up to the bank's sale, and again earlier this year along with Mr. Green and 21 other members of the HSBC board, including Mr. Geoghegan.

Mr. Green's appointment "represent a certain continuity at the company," said Neil Wesley, an equity analyst in London at Morley Fund Management, which oversees about $253 billion of assets, including HSBC shares. "When you're dealing with a company as large and diverse as HSBC, you don't make dramatic changes."

Mr. Green and Mr. Geoghegan may focus on filling in the gaps in HSBC's global business by expanding in countries such as China, Brazil and India, markets that Sir John in May said were among those with the greatest potential for growth. HSBC, which trails Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. in market value, makes half its profit in Europe and Hong Kong, a third from the US and three percent from South America.

Shares of HSBC rose eight pence, or 0.9 percent, to 949 pence at 12.49 p.m. in London, giving the company a market value of about ?107 billion ($183 billion). The stock has almost doubled since Sir John became chairman in 1998, the best performer among UK banks such as Barclays Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc.

"The new management have spent time with Sir John and know the bank," said Alan Beaney, who helps manage ?800 million, including HSBC shares, at Principal Investment Management in Sevenoaks, England. "If someone new had come in I would have been a bit concerned but it looks like an orderly transition."

Mr. Green, 57, a graduate of Oxford University with a master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became chief executive in May 2003, replacing Keith Whitson. He started his career with the UK government's Ministry of Overseas Development before joining McKinsey & Co., where he was a consultant for five years. In 1982 he joined what was then called the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp. to oversee corporate planning. He moved on to various treasury jobs and in 1998 was named to the board as the executive director responsible for investment banking, private banking and asset management, adding corporate banking in 2002.

Mr. Green was chosen to replace Sir John after a "thorough selection process" that included "extensive benchmarking against external candidates," Brian Moffat, chairman of the nomination committee said in a letter to shareholders.

"It's Bond that has cast HSBC as one of the top banks in the world and that's an important legacy to leave," said Simon Maughan, an analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in London. "It's truly global."

Acquisitions Sir John oversaw since becoming chairman included the $15.5 billion purchase in 2002 of Household International Inc., a US lender to people denied credit by other banks, and the $11 billion takeover of Credit Commercial de France SA in 2000. He was also pivotal to the Bank of Bermuda acquisition that closed last year, marking the first time a foreign bank was allowed to acquire a business licensed as a Bermuda bank.

Sir John, who was knighted in 1999, is characterised for his frugality, both personally and professionally. He travelled to work on London's Underground and in 2002 said he wanted employees to turn off the lights when they left the office each day to save money for shareholders.

Mr. Geoghegan, 52, who took charge of HSBC's UK retail banking division in January 2004, has been trying to cut costs amid slower job growth and a cooling property market. Pre-tax profit in the UK, which accounts for about 18 percent of the total, fell to $1.93 billion in the first half from $2.2 billion a year ago.

`Mr. Geoghegan "has a reputation for shaking things up a bit," said Richard Staite, who works in European bank specialist sales at SG Securities in London. "He's quite an aggressive character who's prepared to push through change."