Top executives of HSBC met with the bank’s shareholders in Hong Kong on 2 August and sought to convince small investors that splitting off its Asian business wouldn’t benefit them.

HSBC chair Mark Tucker and chief executive Noel Quinn, who had travelled from London and went through a mandatory seven-day quarantine in the Asian financial hub, joined hundreds of attendees in a large convention hall on the Kowloon waterfront, across the harbour from the British bank’s office building in downtown Central. Outside the meeting venue, people held placards and banners with messages calling for changes at HSBC, and for the bank to protect the interests of its minority shareholders.