Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Standard Chartered axes 15,000 jobs, announces $5.1B capital raise


Hong Kong, China - Asia-focused British bank Standard Chartered said Tuesday it would axe 15,000 jobs and raise $5.1 billion in capital after posting a "disappointing" third-quarter loss as it struggles to return to growth.

The job losses are part of a major restructuring that will cost around $3 billion, the bank said.

A Standard Chartered spokeswoman said she could not give any further details of the job cuts.

More than half of the restructuring costs would come from potential losses on liquidating assets and businesses, the bank said in a statement.

The remaining charges would be from "potential redundancy costs" of a planned headcount reduction of 15,000, as well as goodwill write-downs, it added.

The bank reported an unexpected pre-tax quarterly loss of $139 million compared with a $1.53 billion profit a year earlier, in a performance described as "disappointing" by group chief executive Bill Winters.

Revenue was down 18.4 percent to $3.68 billion and impairment losses increased from $536 million to $1.23 billion for the quarter.

Shares in the bank plunged as much as 6.2 percent on the Hong Kong stock exchange in the wake of the results – its stock value has fallen 32 percent in the past year.

"I know a lot of people losing their jobs is not good, (but) from a business point of view, that's what they have to do," Hong Kong-based financial analyst Jackson Wong told AFP.

Wong said loan losses were the main reason the bank swung to a pre-tax loss, adding that it needed to "control costs and try to remodel (its) business".

source: interaksyon.com