April 30 (Reuters) - HSBC said on Tuesday its Chief Executive Noel Quinn will retire - a surprise departure by its hard-nosed leader of five years who has overseen a sweeping series of asset sales across the globe.

Following are the reactions to the retirement:

SIMON YUEN, FOUNDER, SURICH ASSET MANAGEMENT, HONG KONG

"Noel had done his best in driving the strategy for the HSBC group. I think shrinking businesses in Western markets such as the U.S., Canada and Europe has been a good move for HSBC at the same time as boosting the group's Asian business."

"We do hope that the next CEO would lay out more plans execution-wise to further increase the bank's businesses in Asian countries. We can see a trend that the concentration of wealthy people has been increasing in Asia and also Middle East. We would expect the next CEO of HSBC to formulate plans to capture the opportunities for those markets in the Middle East, such as Dubai."

(Reporting by Scott Murdoch; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)