The bank said Monday that profit for the six months ending June 30 rose 10% to $13.6 billion, or 48 cents per share.
Advertisement
Stuart Gulliver, group chief executive, said: “Our performance in the first half of 2015 demonstrated the underlying strength of our business”.
Speaking on a conference call, Trabuco acknowledged there was a degree of risk in any large acquisition but played down the challenges in integrating HSBC Brasil, Bradesco’s first takeover since 2009.
Gargiulo also said that scale was crucial in Brazil’s retail banking sector, where HSBC had been trying to compete.
Adjusted profit at HSBC’s global banking and markets division rose 12 percent, boosted by a strong performance in equities and foreign exchange trading.
The sale of assets and Brazil and also the likely completion of deals to sell HSBC’s loss-making Turkish unit can be expected to rake in about $110bn.
See the WSJ story for more detail on HSBC’s business, “HSBC to Sell Brazil Business to Banco Bradesco for .2 Billion” and the Reuters story, “Bradesco to pay .2 billion for HSBC Brazil unit, biggest-ever buy”. “The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to complete by Q2 2016”, said HSBC.
The lender confirmed its board will make a decision on whether or not to move the bank’s base to Hong Kong by the end of the year.
In a statement accompanying the release of the results, Flint says: “There is no doubt that banking is in a period of fundamental change as a effect of technological developments that, firstly, allow storage and analysis of an nearly unlimited amount of data and, secondly, allow customers to directly access third party providers when transacting or investing”.
HSBC made the wrong kind of headlines this year, when an worldwide Consortium of Investigative Journalists published a report naming 100,000 clients who were using the bank to evade taxes. The swingeing job cuts come as the bank seeks to deliver annual cost savings of about $4.5bn to $5bn by the end of 2017.
Advertisement
Earnings from Asia jumped by almost a fifth as HSBC enjoyed a boom in business in Hong Kong – where it is considering relocating its headquarters from London to help reduce its tax burden – as investors piled into China’s soaring markets. “There are many factors that may affect the range of outcomes, and the resulting financial impact, of these investigations and reviews, which could be significant”, the bank said yesterday. The bank has said it has put aside a $1.3 billion provision connected to these investigations. The bank faces uncertainties in the second half of the year, according to Jackson Wong, associate director for Simsen Financial Group.
