HSBC’s recent appointment of a special adviser on climate change has not soothed concerns about its long-term strategy. On Friday, activist fund manager Eric Knight launched his opening salvo in a letter to the bank demanding a “fundamental” review of the business. As ever, his letter is less motivated by a genuine desire to debate optimal corporate structures than by share prices.

HSBC has hardly taken the battering that ABN Amro suffered before TCI launched its activist campaign for the break-up of the Dutch bank. Over the past three years, HSBC has underperformed the UK banks index by about 10 per cent, but in the year to date, it has beaten the sector by 7 per cent. Measuring the bank’s share price against the whole UK market, or the global financials sector, is not a fair comparison – its closest peers are all unimpressive on that basis. Even so, Mr Knight believes that HSBC is up to 50 per cent undervalued.