HSBC Holdings Plc?s newly appointed chief executive officer Michael Geoghegan may draw from his three decades of experience in the emerging markets to add customers in the world?s fastest-growing economies.

?The emerging markets are one of the main growth drivers of HSBC and Geoghegan?s experience there can?t help but be useful,? said Michael Lever, an analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston in London, who has an ?outperform? rating on shares of HSBC, the world?s third-biggest bank by market value.

Geoghegan is a 32-year HSBC veteran who has worked all over the world for the London-based bank. After stints in Asia and the Middle East, he ran the South American unit from 1997 to 2003 and helped establish HSBC in Brazil.

Investors say Geoghegan?s appointment tracks with the bank?s strategy. Outgoing chairman Sir John Bond has named Brazil, India, China, Malaysia, South Korea and Mexico as priorities for expansion.

Geoghegan, 52, assumes the number two job in May, following the retirement of Sir John, 64, who is being replaced by current-CEO Stephen Green. For the past two years, Geoghegan led the UK consumer business, described by HSBC in its August annual report as the ?most difficult? credit market.

?If someone new had come in I would have been a bit concerned, but today it looks like an orderly transition,? said Alan Beaney, who helps manage ?800 million ($1.4 billion), including HSBC shares, at Principal Investment Management in Sevenoaks, England. ?I don?t see much change in direction from new management. They are all coming from within the bank.?

Geoghegan, Sir John and Green declined requests for interviews.

HSBC has spent at least $2 billion since 1997 on acquisitions in Brazil, adding Lloyds TSB Group Plc?s Brazil units for $815 million in October 2003. HSBC?s retail banks had 46 billion reais ($21 billion) in assets by June of this year, triple the 13.8 billion reais total in 1998.

The Lloyds deal was designed to take advantage of demand for credit among low-income Brazilians who don?t earn enough to open a bank account as the country?s economy expands. In 2003, 60 million Brazilians out of a workforce of 100 million didn?t have bank accounts, Geoghegan said a year ago in an interview.

?We?d be mad not to be in this market,? Geoghegan said last November. ?I?m addicted to investments in Brazil.?

Brazil?s economy grew 3.9 percent in the second quarter and India?s expanded 8.1 percent from a year earlier, while China?s economy increased 9.4 percent in the third quarter.

HSBC, established in 1865 to finance trade between China and Europe, has invested more than $5 billion in China, the world?s fastest-growing major economy. It has stakes in Bank of Communications Ltd., China?s number five lender, and Ping An Insurance (Group) Co., the country?s second-biggest insurer.

Shares of HSBC fell 4.5 pence to close at 935.5 pence in London yesterday. The stock has almost doubled since Sir John became chairman in 1998, the best performer among competing UK banks led by London-based Barclays Plc and Edinburgh-based Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc.

Sir John, architect of more than $46 billion of acquisitions in his 12 years as CEO and Chairman at HSBC, transformed the company whose market value today trails only Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. among global lenders.

Geoghegan was one of bank?s so-called international officers, or IOs, a group of managers prepared to travel at a moment?s notice wherever and whenever the bank needs them.

Sir John sent Geoghegan to Curitiba, Brazil, in March 1997 following HSBC?s $940 million purchase of Banco Bamerindus do Brasil SA. The first time he saw Curitiba, where Bamerindus is based, was at 4 a.m. when his plane landed, he recalled in a 1999 interview.

All Bamerindus? senior managers had been dismissed, and only two members of the HSBC team spoke Portuguese. Working through an interpreter, Geoghegan installed a new management and began hiring executives from rival banks. Already a Spanish speaker, he later took lessons in Portuguese and can conduct business in both languages.

As an international officer, Geoghegan also was dispatched to projects in Qatar, Singapore and Chile. He has spent all but two of his 32 years in positions outside of the UK, according to the bank.

?He?s worked in a number of different countries and was successful in his role in South America,? said Richard Staite, manager of European bank specialist sales at SG Securities in London. ?He?s someone who gets things done and is a hands-on individual.?

Every August, Geoghegan conducted a tour of Brazil. Over ten days in his 2002 circuit, he visited 22 cities in 16 states, meeting 3,800 staff and 260 clients. Soon after his arrival in Brazil, Geoghegan called Luiz Marcolino, general secretary of the Sao Paulo region bank workers? union, other union bosses into his office to discuss changes to labour practices.

?In Brazil, this type of negotiation is conducted by the human resources department of a bank,? Marcolino said in a telephone interview this week. ?Presidents of Brazilian banks don?t come to us personally. That made a big impression.?

The talks started by Geoghegan helped HSBC and the union agree to extend working hours in 215 of its 923 branches in Brazil, allowing the offices to stay open an additional three hours a day. The reforms came into force this year. ?It took a long time to happen, but it started with that initial personal contact with him,? Marcolino said.

Those reforms helped position Geoghegan for promotion.

?He took a troubled bank and he remade it, introducing a new culture, new technology and modern new branches,? said Daniel Coradi, president of Engenheiros Financeiros & Consultores, a financial consultant firm in Sao Paulo. ?He did an excellent job in Brazil. He?s harvesting the fruits of what he achieved here with this new promotion.?

Geoghegan was made a Commander of the British Empire by the Queen in June 2003 for his promotion of UK business interests in Brazil. At the end of that year, he returned to London and has run HSBC?s UK retail banking operations for the past 21 months.

Sir John in August described the UK credit market as ?the most difficult? as interest rate rises, together with signs of an end to the decade-long property boom, led the bank to set aside more money to cover loans to individuals.

HSBC?s pre-tax profit in the UK, which accounted for 18 percent of the total in the first half of 2005, fell to $1.93 billion in the period from $2.2 billion a year ago, HSBC said. By contrast, pre-tax profit in North America rose to $3.71 billion from $3.42 billion a year ago.

HSBC has cut operating expenses as a percentage of income in the UK over the last year, while the ratios rose in the US. The bank?s British employees staged a strike in May to protest plans to cap pay.

A native of Windsor, England, Geoghegan joined the bank 1973, when it was known as the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp. He?s married with two sons, and his hobbies include restoring houses and collecting furniture. Geoghegan earned ?546,000, or $944,000, in 2004 as head of the UK retail bank, according to HSBC?s annual report. He also received a ?1.2 million payment into his pension plan in lieu of a bonus.