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We have come a long way from the Scotsman's founding of the Hong Kong Bank. I am talking global reality in 2003. The attached article is an old one from a quick google search. It seems that HSBC (where I banked when I lived in Canada) absorbed Midland Bank.

http://www.iht.com/IHT/PS/99/ps032099a.html

Government Stakes Muddle Picture for Asian Perennials

By Philip Segal International Herald Tribune

...there are a handful of stocks that are large and widely held by any standard, the biggest of which is HSBC Holdings PLC with a market capitalization of 667.3 billion Hong Kong dollars ($86.11 billion) and 175,000 shareholders at the end of last year. Now trading at three times book value, it makes up a staggering 28 percent of the benchmark Hang Seng Index.

Perhaps recognizing that the bank is getting too big for the Hong Kong market, HSBC said in February that even though its stock is already traded in London, it would be seeking a listing in New York as well. The stock is widely held, though the largest shareholder as of August was the government of Hong Kong, which bought 8.8 percent of shares in an unprecedented $15 billion operation to support the region's equity market.

......

HSBC controls Midland Bank in Great Britain, Marine Midland Bank in the United States and other banks in Latin America, Canada and the Middle East. If a pending deal closes in the next several months, the bank could acquire all the shares of Seoulbank of South Korea, a first for a foreign financial institution in that country.

.....

While HSBC is as much a core holding for British bank-stock portfolios as for Hong Kong investors, Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. ''is the core holding,'' of any purely Hong Kong portfolio, said Otto Chan, head of sales at Salomon Smith Barney. Hutchison, with a market capitalization equal to $31.64 billion, represents the ports, telecommunications, energy and retailing empire of the tycoon Li Ka-shing. In the past year, it has outperformed the Hang Seng Index by 14.8 percent.