Standard Chartered’s 2023 profit jumps 18%, ahead of market estimates; US$1 billion share buy-back launched
- The emerging-markets focused lender made a net profit of US$3.47 billion in 2023, or US$1.08 per share, up from US$2.95 billion posted a year ago
- The lender announced a fresh share buy-back of US$1 billion and said it had paid 27 US cents as dividend in the full year in 2023
Standard Chartered, reiterated its positive view on Hong Kong, the lender’s single largest market, after it reported an 18 per cent jump in profit for 2023, beating street estimates as its bottom line was driven by higher interest income and a wealth management boom.
The emerging-markets focused lender posted a net profit of US$3.47billion in 2023, or US$1.08 per share, against a profit of US$2.95 billion posted a year ago. This is better than analysts’ estimate of US$3.34 billion.
The lender, one of Hong Kong’s three currency-issuing banks, announced a fresh share buy-back of US$1 billion and said it had paid 27 US cents as dividend in the full year in 2023, 50 per cent higher than 18 US cents per share a year ago.
The London-based bank, which generates much of its revenues from Asia, reported US$5.09 billion in statutory pre-tax profit for 2023, up 19 per cent from US$4.28 billion in 2022, missing the US$5.39 billion estimate made by analysts in a Bloomberg poll.
Underlying pre-tax profit in Hong Kong, its single largest market, rose 77 per cent to US$1.85 billion, a strong performance that Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters said showed the city’s potential.
