While the big American banks are trying to organize a collective superfund to shore up their shaky off-balance-sheet debt, Europe's biggest bank, HSBC of Britain, is simply taking its troubled children in.

HSBC said today that it would put two of its structured investment vehicles back on its balance sheet and provide them with $35 billion of funding.

Investors in the two S.I.V.'s, Cullinan Finance Ltd. and Asscher Finance Ltd. (named after the largest diamond in the world and the Asscher brothers who cut it, notes the Financial Times' Alphaville blog), have the option of exchanging their holdings for debt issued by a new company backed by loans from HSBC.

Stuart Gulliver, chief executive of HSBC's investment banking business, said, "We believe that HSBC's actions will set a benchmark and restore a degree of confidence to the S.I.V. sector, while providing a specific solution to address the challenges faced by investors in Cullinan and Asscher."

The move by HSBC stands in contrast to the steps being taken by its global rival, Citigroup. HSBC's two S.I.V.'s held $45 billion of assets. Citigroup has seven S.I.V.'s with a combined $80 billion of assets. Citigroup, along with J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America, has been trying to organize a pool of S.I.V. debt to stabilize the vehicles amid constraints in the market for commercial paper.

HSBC is "using their balance sheet scale and strength to reassure investors in these vehicles and create a long-term solution," Antony Broadbent, a London-based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., told Bloomberg News. The move "prevents the need for a fire sale of the assets" and makes it less likely that HSBC will join the banks' superfund.


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