FACTBOX: Key facts about HSBC

LONDON (Reuters) - Europe's biggest bank HSBC launched a 12.85 billion pound ($18.3 billion) rights issue on Monday to shore up its balance sheet after annual profit more than halved as bad debts soared in the United States.

Here are key facts about HSBC:

--HSBC has 9,500 offices in 86 countries and territories across Europe, Asia, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa.

It employs 335,000 staff and has about 100 million customers.

--The 144-year-old London headquartered bank has main listings in London and Hong Kong and around 200,000 shareholders.

Its shares fell to about 400 pence by 11:40 a.m. GMT (6:40 a.m. ET), cutting its market value to $70 billion to rank it as the fourth-biggest bank in the world behind China's ICBC and Bank of China and U.S. bank JPMorgan Chase.

--Stephen Green has been chairman since 2006, when he took over from John Bond. Michael Geoghegan moved into Green's shoes as chief executive at the same time. Both have been at the bank for decades and it continued HSBC's tradition of internal senior appointments. In early 2007 Green stepped back from executive day-to-day strategy, giving more power to Geoghegan.

--HSBC is named after its founding member, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp., which was established in 1865 to finance the growing trade between Europe, India and China. It widened its scope early in the 20th century with loans to governments, especially in China, to finance railway building and infrastructure projects.

During World War II the majority of its staff became prisoners of war in Asia. It survived under the guidance of its London Advisory Committee, which was empowered to act as a board in 1943.

--HSBC restored its head office to Hong Kong after the war, and played a key role in the reconstruction of the Hong Kong economy. It diversified with a series of deals. Asian additions included Mercantile Bank in 1959 and a controlling interest in Hang Seng Bank in 1965.

--HSBC expanded in the west during the 1980s, including the purchase of Marine Midland Bank in the United States and taking a 15 percent stake in Britain's Midland Bank.

HSBC Holdings was formed in 1991 and a year later it took over Midland in a 3.9 billion pound deal that doubled the bank's assets to 170 billion pounds.

Further major purchases followed in Argentina and Brazil in 1997 and the Republic New York Corp. in 1999, and it bought France's CCF for $11 billion in 2000.

--The purchase of U.S. consumer finance lender Household for $14.8 billion in 2003 was the bank's biggest-ever purchase, but the deal was criticized for exposing the traditionally conservative lender to subprime borrowers.

--HSBC has increased its focus on Asia and emerging markets in recent years. In China, it holds a 19 percent stake in Bank of Communications, a 16.8 percent stake in Ping An Insurance Co., a 12.8 percent holding in Industrial Bank and has its own network of 78 branches and sub-branches.

(Compiled by Steve Slater; Editing by Hans Peters)