HSBC posted an annual profit on Wednesday (Feb 19) that beat estimates, helped by increased revenue in wealth and markets businesses, and set stiff cost-cut targets as its new CEO implements a revamp of the Asia-focussed bank to boost returns.
The Asia-focused lender also announced a new US$2 billion share buyback which it plans to complete before next earnings.
The figures come against the backdrop of CEO Georges Elhedery embarking on costly restructuring just as the business outlook is muddied by divergence in central bank interest rate policies, with the eurozone having room to cut rates, the US holding steady and Japan expected to raise.
Elhedery, who took the helm in September last year, has been taking steps to boost returns and tighten the London-headquartered bank’s focus on Asia, where it earns the bulk of its profit.
HSBC reported a profit before tax for 2024 of US$32.3 billion, as income withstood the impact of falling interest rates. That compared with US$30.3 billion a year earlier and the US$31.7 billion average of analyst estimates compiled by the bank.
The bank said it aimed to generate about US$300 million of cost reductions in 2025, with a commitment to an annualised reduction of US$1.5 billion in cost base expected by the end of 2026.
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“We have renewed vigour in finding the efficiencies that will optimise our resource allocation, be that geographical, business line or balance sheet,” Elhedery said in the bank’s earnings statement.
“This will enhance the way we actively and dynamically manage costs and capital, and target investments.”
HSBC said it was aiming for a performance target of a mid-teens return on average tangible equity for each of the three years from 2025 to 2027, while noting the outlook for interest rates remains volatile and uncertain in the medium term.
In 2024, wealth and personal banking, its biggest earner, delivered US$12.2 billion in profit before tax, a 5.2 per cent rise from a year earlier, as it won new customers and sold more wealth management products.
Profit in global banking and markets rose nearly 27 per cent to US$7.1 billion, its earnings filing showed.
HSBC also said it will pay a dividend of US$0.36 a share, which includes US$0.21 a share for the disposal of its Canadian business.
Elhedery, a career HSBC insider promoted from the CFO role, has moved faster than some analysts and investors expected to shake up the bank by slashing the ranks of senior managers and reorganising operating divisions along East-West lines. He cut the mergers-and-acquisitions and equity capital markets teams in Europe and the Americas in the bank’s biggest investment banking retrenchment in decades, accelerating a pivot towards Asian markets. REUTERS
