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HSBC to take $3.4 billion charge over U.S. losses
No CDO hit at London-headquartered bank, now worth more than Citigroup
By Steve Goldstein, MarketWatch
Last Update: 7:19 AM ET Nov 14, 2007
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- HSBC Holdings on Wednesday said it would have to write off a further $3.4 billion from its U.S. business during the third quarter, but said profit before tax will increase because of strong growth from Asia and the Middle East.
The lender, one of the first to report the damage from U.S. subprime mortgages, said it's taking a $3.4 billion loan-impairment charge in its U.S. consumer finance business during the third quarter, which it said was $1.4 billion higher than would have been implied by extrapolating first-half trends.
Of this increment, about $700 million of the write-off at the former Household International is related to real estate secured credit, with the remainder largely due to branch unsecured loan and cards portfolios. HSBC bought Household in 2003 for around $14 billion.
"I think the thing that's emerged in the third quarter is that the housing market deterioration is beginning to have a broader impact, both within the market and beginning to extend into other areas," said Douglas Flint, group finance director, in a prepared interview.
Michael Helsby, a Morgan Stanley analyst, said the charge was "definitely worse" than he had forecast. "As we feared, there has been contagion into the branch-based mortgage book," he said.
Goldman Sachs analysts added the figures show a "slow motion, long-tailed problem."
Still, shares of the HSBC climbed as much as 5% in London trading Wednesday after it maintained that profit would increase during the third quarter. In afternoon trade, HSBC shares rose 1.8%. See London markets.
Part of those gains were on the broader advance in the European financial sector after the Wall Street rally on Tuesday. Nonetheless, shares of HSBC had not taken the same hit over the last few weeks as rivals such as Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
CEO Michael Geoghegan said the results demonstrate that "global diversification works." Geoghegan has been under fire by investors led by Knight Vinke over the bank's performance and acquisition strategy.
"I think our strategy's been totally vindicated," he said, noting the bank is strongly capitalized, well diversified and attracting deposits from customers attracted to the bank's relative safety.
More deterioration in U.S.
The bank, which now carries a larger market capitalization that Citigroup warned that further deterioration could occur in the U.S. if the current housing market distress continues.
The bank also has been curtailing its U.S. business, shutting its Decision One lending arm and eliminating the equivalent of around 5% of consumer lending-loan originations. HSBC said Wednesday it is going to close another 260 branches as the "projected flow of new business is no longer compatible with the scale of the current consumer finance branch business." HSBC had previously announced it was shutting 100 branches.
It will take a fourth-quarter charge of $55 million for the closures. It didn't say how many jobs would be lost as a result.
Geoghegan said the deterioration outside of mortgages -- from areas including auto finance and credit cards -- was "very small."
Standard & Poor's Rating Services cut its outlook on the group's credit to stable from positive.
"We expect that HSBC Finance's impairment charge will remain elevated into 2008, with subdued revenues, and these factors do not support an upgrade of the ratings within our outlook horizon," said Richard Barnes, a credit analyst. HSBC Finance is the name of HSBC's U.S. arm.
HSBC added that its corporate, investment banking and markets business posted profit before tax "broadly" in line with last year after write-downs of securities, credit trading and leveraged acquisition financing positions worth $925 million.
But HSBC said it has not had to make any significant write-down from subprime mortgage-backed collateralized debt obligations "disclosed by a number of other financial institutions."
The company's off-balance sheet structured investment vehicles have "high" asset quality, though two issuers of assets held by the SIVs were downgraded.
Elsewhere, HSBC reported healthy conditions, with third-quarter profit before tax ahead of last year.
Underlying revenue growth was faster during the first half, and underlying costs were moderately lower, the bank said. HSBC didn't report "underlying revenue" during the first half, but operating income rose 23%.
In Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, its "excellent" performance continued, and the U.K. led its Europe segment to be strongly ahead of the year-ago quarter, HSBC said. British personal business credit trends showed signs of improvement, which the bank attributed to underwriting changes it has made.
Latin American performance was weaker due to higher loan impairment charges in Mexico, the bank said. End of Story
