Standard Chartered (2888)

[Blancfable]

US authorities have re-opened investigations into Standard Chartered to find out if the bank withheld information when reaching settlements worth $667m (£417m) over breaking sanctions on Iran two years ago.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

[butcher]

Read on Channel News Asia, SCB will be closing quite a number of retail branches to cut costs. Its shares also fell a lot recently

[yawnyawn]

SCB is trading at 0.8x book now. Only in 2008 did the PB fell below 1.0x. SCB traded between 1.3-2.3x book in the past decade.

I wonder if the market has overreacted to the bad news happening to SCB now. Overall, i see SCB has a strong franchise in the clearing hubs for offshore RMB, namely HK, SG and London.

(monitoring)

[CityFarmer]

Read on Channel News Asia, SCB will be closing quite a number of retail branches to cut costs. Its shares also fell a lot recently

The detail is announced...

Standard Chartered to close up to 100 branches to repair profits
Emma Dunkley and Patrick Jenkins

Standard Chartered will close up to 100 retail branches as part of a plan to save millions of dollars to boost“disappointing” profits and appease disgruntled shareholders as the bank’s management comes under increasing pressure.
The emerging-markets bank, which has issued three profit warnings in the past year, plans to shut between 80 and 100 of its 1,248 branches across Asia, Africa and the Middle East next year, in a drive to hit a previously-announced $400m cost-savings target next year.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a928cd64-...z3Iq1BIXWB

[greengiraffe]

Standard Chartered hit with first S&P downgrade in 20 years
PUBLISHED: 11:05 PM, NOVEMBER 28, 2014

LONDON - Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s today (Nov 28) cut its credit rating on Standard Chartered for the first time in 20 years, citing the “tough period” the Asia-focused bank is going through and its weaker credit-worthiness.

S&P cut its long-term issuer credit rating on Standard Chartered to ‘A’ from ‘A+’, with a negative outlook -- a move that could make it more expensive for the bank to borrow money. It was S&P’s first downgrade since it assigned Standard Chartered a rating in 1994, which was followed by upgrades in 1995, 2006 and 2011.

It said the bank “is going through a tough period of late” after years of solid growth and strong financial performance.

“We lowered the ratings because we consider the Standard Chartered group’s creditworthiness to have weakened when compared with its peers,” said S&P credit analyst Joseph Leung.

In afternoon London trade, Standard Chartered shares were down 0.2 per cent at 938.12 pence, in line with Britain’s benchmark FTSE-100 index .

The bank has said it expects a second successive fall in annual profits this year, halting a decade of record earnings. Last month it issued its third profit warning of the year after a jump in losses from bad debts. Its problems have raised the heat on Chief Executive Peter Sands, who has set out a plan to cut costs and restructure the business to kick-start growth.

S&P also said it lowered the bank’s risk position assessment to ‘adequate’ from ‘strong’.

“This reflects our view that the group is no longer materially less exposed to unexpected losses than peers,” it said.

S&P said weaknesses at the bank included its complex operations and the concentration of loans in single borrowers. It said the bank was well funded and liquid, however, and was diversified by region and asset class, and that asset quality should “remain steady at worst” in 2015 versus 2014. - REUTERS

[sgpunter]

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/busi...76052.html

Will this in any way affect equity trading via Standard Chartered??

And if so, how will they account for the shares parked under them?

[thor666]

Im wondering the same thing too. Just opened an acct last mth, but not purchased yet.

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

[orangetea]

The HK one was reported to be shut when employees went today

I called scb and they said there was nothing of it.

I would think that cash accounts would contribute to customers parking $$ in their bank and it has little overheads. I do hope scb cash trading account would not be affected.

While waiting for official scb news, today i did the forms for interactive brokers to invest in US equity, short of transferring funds into their account.

[psolhawk]

On this move, the Standard Chartered spokesman told the Straits Times: "The decision has been taken to exit globally the institutional cash equities, equity research and equities capital market (ECM) business with immediate effect." - See more at: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/busines...bi8Cj.dpuf

Institutional cash equities do not refer to the kacang putih kind of equity trades we do. It was a sensational heading in the news but I do not interpret it as impacting retail investors.

[sgpunter]

I hope not. I have some penny stocks in small little lots held with them. Wouldn't make sense for me to trade in those stocks in brokerages with minimum commission.