But things are changing dramatically in this tiny British colony in the middle of the Atlantic. For in February, HSBC Holdings, the world’s second biggest bank, bought the island’s biggest company, Bank of Bermuda, for $1.3bn.
Bermuda has developed into a financial powerhouse in the past two decades, as home to the biggest insurance market outside Lloyd’s of London and New York. It is market leader in captive insurance companies, and 13,500 foreign businesses are nominally headquartered on the low-tax island (though fewer than 400 have a physical presence there).
