Bank of Bermuda president and CEO Henry Smith yesterday confirmed that he will be leaving his post within a year of the bank being bought out by HSBC.

Although still subject to shareholder and regulatory approval, multinational banking giant HSBC is set to close on its purchase of Bermuda's largest bank ? in a deal worth $1.3 billion announced at the end of last month ? during the first quarter of next year.

Mr. Smith ? who will be leaving the bank after 30 years and having worked his way from teller to the post of CEO for the last seven years ? said yesterday in an interview with that he hopes that he will be asked to stay involved as a director of the board, and perhaps also continue to be involved with the Bank of Bermuda Foundation.

Mr. Smith said: "It is going to get out so I might as well address it. The intent of HSBC is indeed in the spirit of Bermuda law, we are actually obliged by law to have Bermudian minded management, and we are actually obliged to have a predominately Bermudian board. In the spirit of that law, HSBC intends to keep the senior management in place."

Mr. Smith added, however, that he and CFO Ed Gomez were not part of that deal. Mr. Gomez is to be replaced by an HSBC appointed chief financial officer and Mr. Smith has been asked to stay on for up to a year, but not more.

A Bank of Bermuda spokesperson yesterday said it was too early to determine whether the post of CEO would go to a local management person or an HSBC executive, once Mr. Smith quit that post.

Yesterday Mr. Smith said: "They will not need a CFO. He (Ed Gomez) will be leaving and that is normal. And they have also made it clear to me that they will not need my services after a period of time. That would be the time it would take to bed the transaction, make sure everybody is settled. I am committed to them for one year."

Mr. Smith continued: "Part of me is a little disappointed to leave the place I have worked in for 30 years ? and by then it will be 31 years.

"I'm losing my job. That is a fact, I will lose my job. And that does concern me, when I lose my job I will be 55.

"I could retire at that age, but in terms of my abilities and my desires, I am well before retirement age. I am going to have to go find another job," he said, but added: "Is that bad? No, I think I can find one. I have skills that are marketable. But is it sad? Yes, I'll be leaving the place I've spent 30 years in; leaving the people I have worked very close with.

"But I can tell you one thing I'm not leaving until I make sure that we have done this the best way possible and until we make sure that as much as I can do it, our people are looked after. If we can do that quickly and HSBC no longer needs me, maybe I'll leave earlier but I am committed for a year."

As for what he will do after the bank, which is the only place he has ever worked, Mr. Smith said he would look for a new job, either here or overseas, but may take a breather first.

"I might take some time off, but I'm not one of these people that is going to sit around. I've always said that I will never work (at the bank) to retirement age. I never intended to do that, there was always going to be a point in my career where I left to do something different. And here is an opportunity for me to do that."

Mr. Smith added: "I hope that HSBC would want to keep me on the board, I'd like to stay involved, if they'll have me. And hopefully with the foundation as well. But I would like to take some time off. Not necessarily because I need to make a lot of money, but to keep busy. I don't think retirement is all it is cracked up to be. I cannot see doing that."

Mr. Smith added that he may have made the choice to leave the bank, even if HSBC had asked him to stay on.

"If they had asked me to stay, would I have? Probably not, because I would be going from running a global institution to running really, the Bermuda piece of it. And that is not good enough for me. So, this will be a mutual decision."

Mr. Smith concluded that critics of the deal, and insinuations that senior management could have brokered the deal for personal gains, should see his leaving the bank as affirmation of his working to get the best deal for the bank's stakeholders and for Bermuda: "They are not firing me, but I think it is important that when some shareholders try to assign motives to me for trying to make this work, they need to keep in mind that to be fair, I will lose my job. And no matter what way you cut it, no matter how many shares I have, I have enough to be concerned that we get the right price. It affects me as much as anybody. Anyone who knows me will know that I am going to be sure to get the right price for Bermuda and for staff in particular. If I did not think this was the right deal, I wouldn't be sitting here talking about it."