HSBC’s Job-Slashing CEO Pivots to $14 Billion Hong Kong Bet (1)

After spending the past year shedding thousands of jobs and stripping out layers of management to rein in costs, HSBC Holdings Plc Chief Executive Officer Georges Elhederyis now looking for ways to grow revenue.

On Thursday, investors got their first taste of how exactly he’ll pull that off with a $14 billion buyout of its troubled Hong Kong subsidiary Hang Seng Bank Ltd.

Having approached the board of Hang Seng Bank with an offer to take it private at the start of September, bankers were able to engineer HSBC’s biggest deal in decades in just about four weeks, according ...