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Standard Chartered (LSE:STAN) announced high single-digit growth in revenue in an Interim Management Report for the first quarter of the fiscal year issued this morning. Oddly, share prices dropped over 3.5% to 1,458.50 by mid-afternoon.
The Report
In addition to the revenue growth, they reported the low double-digit growth in operating profit during the last quarter. It should be noted that the bank is not being cryptic in its non-specific in its reporting, but that it normally reports specific financial information in its mid-year and year-end reports. Although the bank remains confident of hitting its forecasted double-digit revenue gain for the year, it remains concerned that it’s core Asian markets could face a tough time with further escalation of the Eurozone debt crisis and possible further strengthening of the US dollar against Asian currencies. Both consumer and wholesale divisions recorded revenue growth during the first quarter. The largest contributions to the revenue growth were from the Hong Kong, Malaysian, Indonesian, Chinese, American, UK, and European markets against a sluggish performance in India.
Corporate Comments
- CEO Peter Sands said that “Standard Chartered has had a strong start to 2012, with good performances across a broad spread of geographies and products. We continue to benefit from the disciplined execution of our strategy and are very well positioned in dynamic markets with strong fundamentals. We are in excellent shape, we are a growth company and are differentiated by our liquidity and capital strength. Macroeconomic sentiment is showing signs of improvement, although there remain clear uncertainties and risks in the global environment.”
- Finance Director, Richard Meddings, indicated that the banking group has begun 2012 “with good momentum” and that “We’re investing in Hong Kong, China, (and) branches in Africa on an accelerated basis and ahead of budget. The acceleration in investment is a real sign of confidence.” He also indicated that the bank has “minimal exposure in the Eurozone”so that any increased problems there “would have only secondary impact.” In an interview on Bloomberg’s The Pulse, he said “We are not as yet seeing any contagion coming out of the Eurozone into our markets. Our markets remain strongly growing, high savings rates, high activity levels, low unemployment, and we are clearly, as a bank, benefiting from serving customers in those markets.”
Company Spotlight
Standard Chartered is an international banking group with more than 1,700 branches in over 70 countries offering personal banking, preferred banking, priority & international banking, wholesale banking, SME banking, and Islamic banking. StanChart, as the company is also known, is the UK’s second largest bank by market value.
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