HSBC - HSBC Holdings plc

NYSE - Nasdaq Real Time Price. Currency in USD
41.66
+0.23 (+0.56%)
As of 12:16PM EDT. Market open.
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Previous Close41.43
Open41.82
Bid41.67 x 1400
Ask41.68 x 3000
Day's Range41.65 - 41.85
52 Week Range38.23 - 48.87
Volume735,219
Avg. Volume1,508,620
Market Cap169.868B
Beta (3Y Monthly)0.54
PE Ratio (TTM)12.08
EPS (TTM)3.45
Earnings DateN/A
Forward Dividend & Yield2.00 (4.84%)
Ex-Dividend Date2019-05-16
1y Target Est42.81
Trade prices are not sourced from all markets
  • ‘Stealth Easing’ Spreads in China Property as Debt Risks Mount
    Bloomberg7 hours ago

    ‘Stealth Easing’ Spreads in China Property as Debt Risks Mount

    (Bloomberg) -- “Stealth easing” is Nomura Holdings Inc.’s description of measures rolled out in some Chinese cities in recent months to counter a faltering property market.In one of the latest cases, Beijing’s city government offered two residential land plots for sale without specifying maximum prices for the apartments to be built on them, the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday.Nationwide, officials have put so much effort into a campaign against property speculation -- one of President Xi Jinping’s signature policies -- that they may seem unlikely to start unwinding it now. However, a deepening economic slowdown could force just that at the end of the second quarter, according to Nomura economist Lu Ting.The smallest gain in home prices in eight months in December was reported Wednesday, adding to slowdown signs. Here are some of the recent loosening measures in individual cities.Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Patrick Wong sees wider easing as possible next quarter, but cautions that officials will be wary of fueling speculation in the biggest cities, where homes are beyond the reach of many. Nomura forecasts “major” easing, especially in tier-one and tier-two cities, including scrapping price controls and purchase and resale restrictions.HSBC Holdings Plc is focused on a clutch of cities such as Zhuhai, across the border from Macau, which seem especially vulnerable to home-price declines after their household debt blew out. For the nation as a whole, outstanding mortgages grew 823 percent since 2007 to hit 24.9 trillion yuan ($3.7 trillion) in September, the bank said.The biggest slide in home prices this year may be a 5 percent decline in the smaller, tier-3 cities, HSBC analyst Michelle Kwok said in a report this month. National sales may tumble 10 percent. However, the residential market is “far from entering a severe downturn,” she wrote.Developers can mitigate their risks by investing in cities with strong, migration-driven housing demand and less leverage, Kwok said. The builders with the biggest exposures to cities with “high risk profiles” include industry giant Country Garden Holdings Co.For its part, JPMorgan Chase & Co. expects “modest cooling” in China’s real-estate market this year, while BNP Paribas SA said the government may relax property-tightening measures in second half.“As cities in China developed, they became more and more reliant on land sales, so in short, a lot of the cities will have to quietly relax the tightening policies in order to stimulate sales this year,” Wee Liat Lee, a managing director at BNP said during a briefing in Hong Kong on Wednesday.(Corrects second chart that misspelled town name in a story that originally ran on Jan. 17, 2019.)\--With assistance from Katrina Nicholas and Shawna Kwan.To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Panckhurst in Hong Kong at ppanckhurst@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Katrina Nicholas at knicholas2@bloomberg.net, Paul PanckhurstFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Reuters5 days ago

    UPDATE 1-Evercore set to lose out as Aramco reshuffles IPO roles -sources

    LONDON/DUBAI, July 18 (Reuters) - Boutique investment bank Evercore Partners has lost the chance to retain a prime position as an independent advisor for Saudi Aramco's potential $100 billion share sale, as the oil giant revives its postponed listing, three sources said. Evercore, founded and chaired by U.S. banker and former politician Roger Altman, had secured an equity advisory role with the oil giant in 2017 for what is expected to be the world's largest ever initial public offering (IPO). One of the sources also said that the appeal of Aramco's IPO to Evercore had diminished, due to the relatively low level of fees involved.

  • Killing time: The closing auction is eating the trading day
    MarketWatch6 days ago

    Killing time: The closing auction is eating the trading day

    The closing auction — a window of just five minutes — is becoming the most heavily traded part of the day, a shift that has driven a wedge between investors, banks, exchanges and regulators.

  • Business Wire6 days ago

    HSBC Survey Reveals Extra Income and Improved Quality of Life in the U.S. Drives Expat Job Seekers

    Expats flock to the U.S. for career opportunities and high income, according to the new Expat Explorer survey released today by HSBC Bank USA, N.A., (HSBC), part of HSBC Group, one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organizations. Nearly half of those surveyed (49%) say that they chose to come to the U.S. to progress their career, which is higher than the global average of 36% and much higher than our neighbor Canada, at only 20%. In the U.S., almost all expats (92%) said they’ve had the chance to develop new skills since the move.

  • Reuters6 days ago

    UPDATE 2-WeWork to lease 21-storey Singapore office tower after HSBC moves out

    WeWork Cos will lease a 21-storey building in Singapore's prime financial district that is currently leased to HSBC, marking an expansion by the U.S. co-working space provider in Asia. WeWork, backed by Japan's SoftBank Group, will lease the building from CapitaLand Commercial Trust (CCT) , the Singaporean office landlord said in a statement. The tower, 21 Collyer Quay, will be WeWork's biggest property in the Southeast Asian nation and has a net lettable area of about 200,000 square feet.

  • GuruFocus.com8 days ago

    3 Stocks With High Forward Dividend Yields

    HSBC Holdings tops the list Continue reading...

  • Financial Times12 days ago

    HSBC extends debt collection compensation scheme

    HSBC is extending a compensation scheme for customers who were charged “unreasonable” debt collection fees after finding the issue may have affected almost four times more people than originally thought. HSBC initially estimated that about 6,700 borrowers could be entitled to redress, but on Thursday said it would write to an additional 18,500 customers who had not previously been contacted. HSBC said the new customers were found after a “broader and more complex investigation of third-party records”.

  • 4 Hong Kong-Listed Dividend Stocks That Yield Over 4%
    Motley Fool13 days ago

    4 Hong Kong-Listed Dividend Stocks That Yield Over 4%

    Here are four dividend stocks, with exposure to China, that could supercharge your portfolio while providing a steady stream of income.

  • Default Isn't a Bad Word. Recovering $0, That's Scary
    Bloomberg13 days ago

    Default Isn't a Bad Word. Recovering $0, That's Scary

    (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Before being detained by police in Shanghai, Lo Ching was lauded as the new-age Hua Mulan, the legendary female Chinese warrior. Now the downfall of Lo, chairman of a Hong Kong-listed conglomerate, has become a parable of the dangers of investing in China. Noah Holdings Ltd., one of China’s largest wealth managers catering to high-net-worth individuals, is among the first to find out. The U.S.-listed asset manager has filed a lawsuit against Camsing International Holding Ltd. related to a 3.4 billion yuan ($490 million) credit product in danger of default, according to a filing this week.  The word default, itself, isn’t so scary. After all, evaluating the risk that an obligation won’t be paid is what credit investors do every day. Nor is Camsing’s credit product all that unusual: The underlying assets are account receivables the company expects from China’s top-tier retailers, JD.com Inc. and Suning.com Co.Formal financing channels – such as bank loans, corporate bonds or exchange-traded asset-backed securities – aren’t readily available to smaller private enterprises in China. So while the likes of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. can regularly issue account receivables-backed securities, small businesses often use their working capital as collateral for loans from asset managers. In the case of Camsing, Lo pledged her 62% stake in the company to Noah. The worrying part about all this is whether any money can be clawed back. JD.com and Suning said they don’t owe Noah the 3.4 billion yuan: “Camsing falsified JD.com’s business contracts,” a JD.com spokeswoman told Bloomberg News. Camsing held 5.7 billion yuan in account receivables, 74.4% from Suning and 23.2% from JD.com at the end of 2018, Caixin reported, citing Camsing financial documents the financial news site said it had seen.As for those shares Lo pledged, they’re hardly worth anything now. Camsing’s stock crashed 80.4% on Monday after news of Lo’s detainment broke. That 62% stake is worth just HK$340 million ($43.5 million) now.Noah can file as many lawsuits as it wants; the truth is its path to recovery doesn’t look good. Data on these types of shadow-credit products are slim, but reviewing defaults of exchange-traded corporate bonds, China Inc. has a lousy track record. Among the 128 issuers that have defaulted on their bond obligations since 2014, only 28 have paid back investors in full. Of the total 216 billion yuan in missed bond payments, only 31 billion yuan, or 14.5%, has been repaid, according to HSBC Holdings Plc. Private enterprises are the worst offenders. Of the 17 state-owned enterprises that have defaulted, 41% have paid investors back,  according to HSBC. By comparison, just 19% of the 111 private business that defaulted repaid creditors.As I argued last week, when it comes to private businesses, no one will come to rescue lenders and minority shareholders if things go sour. While cash-strapped local governments rarely pump their fiscal dollars into failing state enterprises these days, none of them wants to see a local champion fail. Somehow municipalities will wring money from bailout funds, strategic investors or even local banks to save struggling businesses. I’d love to laud the animal spirits of China’s private enterprises, but recent waves of corporate-governance scandals – from missing cash to potentially falsified business documents – are scaring investors. If you’re into stocks, by all means go with your heart. If you’re a credit investor, use your head instead.To contact the author of this story: Shuli Ren at sren38@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Rachel Rosenthal at rrosenthal21@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Shuli Ren is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian markets. She previously wrote on markets for Barron's, following a career as an investment banker, and is a CFA charterholder.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

  • GuruFocus.com14 days ago

    Weather Gauge Advisory, LLC Buys HSBC Holdings PLC, Sells Encana Corp

    Investment company Weather Gauge Advisory, LLC buys HSBC Holdings PLC, sells Encana Corp during the 3-months ended 2019Q2, according to the most recent filings of the investment company, Weather Gauge Advisory, LLC.

  • American City Business Journals14 days ago

    HSBC Bank gives $1.3M to help support entrepreneurs

    HSBC Bank's $1.3 million grant to Endeavor will help the global nonprofit's expansion into Western New York.

  • ECB Seen Readying the Pumps for Return to Massive Bond Buying
    Bloomberg14 days ago

    ECB Seen Readying the Pumps for Return to Massive Bond Buying

    (Bloomberg) -- Financial firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley are predicting that the European Central Bank’s flagship crisis-fighting tool will soon make a comeback.Policy makers could relaunch bond purchases as soon as September -- barely nine months after they capped the program at 2.6 trillion euros ($3 trillion), according to Evercore ISI’s Krishna Guha. Other institutions calling for the ECB to restart purchases by early next year include ABN Amro Bank NV, Danske Bank A/S, and BNP Paribas SA.ECB President Mario Draghi said last month that officials will need to add monetary stimulus if the economic outlook doesn’t improve. The euro-zone economy has been stuck in a slump for more than a year, prompting some officials to say it’s no longer possible to consider the downturn a temporary blip.While most investors and economists have penciled in a rate cut by September, their views on QE are more mixed. ECB Executive Board member Benoit Coeure, the head of market operations and a driving force behind QE when it was launched in 2015, said in remarks broadcast Monday that policy makers could “hypothetically” restart net asset purchases if circumstances make it necessary.The latest boost to the likelihood of bond purchases, according to Guha, was last week’s nomination of International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde to lead the ECB when Draghi steps down at the end of October. She has previously praised bond purchases as a policy tool.That “certainly removes doubts in the eyes of the market as to whether the outgoing ECB president could muster support for one last big push before leaving office,” Guha said.Here is a round-up of views on how the ECB might draw on QE to stimulate the euro-area economy:Goldman Sachs“A return to large-scale QE is complicated by the ECB’s self-imposed limits on its asset purchases. But significant headroom remains to expand corporate sector purchases and we estimate that the ECB could buy up to 400 billion euros in sovereign debt under the current constraints”“A limited QE program -- for example, with monthly purchases of 30 billion euros for nine months -- seems feasible within the existing constraints”Morgan Stanley“Sub-par growth and below-target inflation lead us to believe that the ECB now thinks that extra stimulus is warranted. This likely means reactivating its asset purchase program. When exactly and in what size is uncertain. While it could turn out to be different, our assumption is that the central bank could start buying something like 45 billion euros a month as early as the fourth quarter, with an announcement in September”JPMorgan“At this stage, we do not expect more QE, but we emphasize that the visibility is extremely low in terms of the macro outlook and the ECB’s response to it”ABN Amro“We expect the ECB to relaunch QE given the deterioration of the economic outlook and sliding inflation expectations. The second QE program could total 630 billion euros and run for nine months at 70 billion euros a month from January 2020 onward”“The new program could see relatively more purchases of national agency and regional bonds and corporate bonds. Within the public sector program, the issue(r) limit for sovereigns could be left unchanged, though it could rise for national agency and regional bonds”BNP Paribas“We think the ECB will announce a 35-40 billion euros monthly pace of purchases in December for six to nine months, leaving the door open to a further extension, with risks of an earlier announcement”“The new QE program will concentrate on government bonds, in our view, complemented by purchases of private sector assets”HSBC“The current growth and inflation outlook, alongside European Union politics, mean we don’t see an imminent restart of QE, although a shift in tone on technical constraints means a credible program is possible if downside risks crystallize”Commerzbank“From the ECB’s standpoint, there are a number of reasons why net asset purchases should not be resumed. Even if the central bank were to raise the issuer limit from the current 33% to 50%, our calculations suggest that this higher limit would probably be achieved in roughly two years”“The ECB therefore has to use its ammunition very carefully, even though it officially stresses that this is not a problem”Danske Bank“We now expect ECB to cut rates by 20 basis points, introduce a tiering system, extended forward guidance, and restart QE in a package which could come already in September”"Our baseline is that ECB will restart QE for the 12 months at a monthly pace of 45-60 billion euros a month"To contact the reporters on this story: Carolynn Look in Frankfurt at clook4@bloomberg.net;Kristie Pladson in Frankfurt at kpladson@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Gordon at pgordon6@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Reuters15 days ago

    MOVES-HSBC USA chief Patrick Burke to retire, Citi veteran to succeed

  • Wall Street Hasn't Been This Pessimistic on Apple in Decades
    Bloomberg15 days ago

    Wall Street Hasn't Been This Pessimistic on Apple in Decades

    (Bloomberg) -- Wall Street hasn’t been this down on Apple Inc. in a long time.Rosenblatt Securities downgraded the company to sell on Monday, bringing the total number of bearish analysts up to five, among the 57 ratings tracked by Bloomberg. Five is the highest number of sell ratings the iPhone maker has had since at least 1997, according to historical data compiled by Bloomberg. To put that into context, Apple wouldn’t release its iMac computer until August 1998, and the iconic iPod wouldn’t debut until October 2001.In another sign of the growing caution around the company, Apple’s consensus rating -- a proxy for the company’s ratio of buy, hold, and sell ratings -- is currently 3.76, according to Bloomberg data. That’s the lowest since 2004.Skepticism surrounding the company has accelerated in 2019, with all five of the sell ratings coming in this year. Both New Street Research and HSBC lowered their ratings on the stock to sell in April, and in January, the number of firms with buy ratings dropped below 50% for the first time since 2004.The caution has been largely driven by uncertainty surrounding demand for the company’s critical iPhone line, with the U.S.-China trade war seen as a particular headwind. In January, Apple cut its revenue outlook for the first time in almost two decades, in large part because of iPhone weakness. Apple’s third-quarter results are currently expected to come out on July 30.According to data compiled by Bloomberg, more than 60% of Apple’s 2018 revenue was related to the iPhone, while roughly 20% came from China, which is also a critical part of its supply chain. Last week, Citi wrote that Apple’s China sales “could be cut in half” due to “a less favorable brand image desire.”Rosenblatt’s downgrade came as analyst Jun Zhang expects the company “will face fundamental deterioration over the next 6-12 months,” based on disappointing sales trends. The downgrade pushed Apple stock lower by as much as 2.9% in Monday trading.Still, the sell-equivalent ratings hardly represent a consensus view. A plurality of 23 firms recommend buying the stock, while another 21 have hold ratings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.The 2019 caution hasn’t really been reflected in Apple’s stock performance. Shares are up more than 40% from its January low, though they remain about 14% below record levels.The news was not entirely negative for Apple on Monday, however, as Wedbush wrote it was “incrementally more positive on global iPhone demand” following checks in Asia. “We saw a ‘slight uptick’ out of Apple suppliers during our checks although overall handset demand remains challenging,” analyst Daniel Ives wrote. He affirmed his outperform rating and $235 price target.(Adds context in second paragraph, consensus rating in third, and stock performance in ninth.)To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Vlastelica in New York at rvlastelica1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Steven FrommFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Business Wire15 days ago

    HSBC Announces Retirement of Patrick Burke and Appointment of Michael Roberts as President and CEO, HSBC USA

    HSBC Holdings plc (‘HSBC’, the ‘Company’ or the ‘Group’) announces that Patrick Burke will retire from HSBC, to be succeeded as President and Chief Executive Officer, HSBC USA by Michael Roberts. Pat joined HSBC in 1989, serving as Deputy Director, Mergers and Acquisitions and Vice President of Strategy and Development.

  • A Leaner Deutsche Bank May Not Be Fitter in Asia
    Bloomberg15 days ago

    A Leaner Deutsche Bank May Not Be Fitter in Asia

    (Bloomberg Opinion) -- It makes sense for investment banks to cut businesses where they’re too small to be competitive and staying in is costly. So Deutsche Bank AG’s exit from equities trading is overdue. That doesn’t mean life is going to get any easier, in Asia at least.The German lender is counting on its strength in fixed-income and currencies trading to pivot into becoming primarily a corporate bank that serves multinationals’ needs for transactions and cash management. That will put it head to head with the dominant players in Asia: HSBC Holdings Plc, Citigroup Inc. and Standard Chartered Plc. They won’t be an easy nut to crack.At least this approach has a better chance of succeeding than building up Deutsche Bank’s private-banking business, where leaders UBS Group AG and Credit Suisse AG are trying to beat back the challenge of Chinese and Singaporean firms. No bank has exited the equities business on this scale before, as my colleague Elisa Martinuzzi has noted, and it’s unclear what effect this may have on private-banking customers.Deutsche Bank’s stronghold in fixed income and currencies will count for something.(1)It was the region's fourth biggest fixed-income bank by revenue last year, according to Coalition Development Ltd., a London-based analytics company. Within that business, the German lender ranked first in credit, which includes trading corporate bonds and structured products, while it was second in foreign exchange. That’s a crucial calling card for any firm that wants to make it as a corporate bank in Asia.Contrast that with equities trading, where Deutsche Bank ranked 11th by revenue last year, down from sixth in 2015, according to Coalition. In cash equities (which comprises research, sales and trading), it was 10th. Equities increasingly is a business requiring scale, and high salaries for bankers and traders have become harder to support at a time of shrinking commissions and rising automation. Stiffer competition from Indian and Chinese banks has compounded the difficulties.Job cuts in Asia will fall disproportionately on the Hong Kong operation, which is focused on equities, while Singapore should be more resilient, as the bank’s primary fixed-income hub. The question is whether Deutsche Bank’s edge in bonds and foreign exchange will be enough to attract local corporate customers or U.S. multinationals away from the likes of HSBC and Citigroup.Deutsche Bank will also need to keep European corporate clients loyal and manage the high technology costs that come with a push into transaction banking. Luckily, transaction banking and cash management is a humdrum business that tends to have sticky clients in the shape of industrial corporations, unlike institutional investors and hedge funds, which are quick to switch banks. The reason the German government was keen on the since-abandoned merger between Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank AG was that it didn’t want local companies to be left without a national bank overseas at a time when Wall Street firms already dominate European banking.A bigger challenge may be maintaining its heft in fixed income. Morale is far from high, and star traders can be expected to defect as they worry that this restructuring – the bank’s third in four years – won’t be the last. Deutsche Bank plans to cut its 91,000-person workforce by a fifth. At the end of 2018, Asia accounted for 19,700 out of 92,000 global employees, of which more than 10,000 were support staff. The pressure isn’t going away. (1) Deutsche Bank largely exited commodities in 2013, prompted by the high capital requirements of the business and low margins.To contact the author of this story: Nisha Gopalan at ngopalan3@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Matthew Brooker at mbrooker1@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Nisha Gopalan is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals and banking. She previously worked for the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones as an editor and a reporter.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Motley Fool19 days ago

    Better Buy: HSBC Holdings vs. Bank of China

    Banking giants HSBC and Bank of China are two of the largest listed stocks in Hong Kong. But which one should investors go for?

  • Where India Can Find a Cool $1 Trillion
    Bloomberg19 days ago

    Where India Can Find a Cool $1 Trillion

    (Bloomberg Opinion) -- India will need $1 trillion of infrastructure investment to nudge annual GDP growth higher by just half a percentage point in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second five-year term. Of this, at least 55% will have to come from public resources. Where’s the money?Those figures from an analysis by the Confederation of Indian Industry are the No. 1 challenge for Nirmala Sitharaman as the country’s new finance minister gets ready to present her first annual budget on Friday.While the scale of investment isn’t very different from what India spent in the past five years, the sorry state of corporate balance sheets makes it doubtful whether the private sector can put up its projected 45% share. Besides, the economy is in dire straits, regardless of the near-7% GDP growth portrayed by disputed government statistics.From consumption and private investment to exports, no cylinders are firing. Government spending is therefore the only hope. But Sitharaman is in a tight corner. It doesn’t help that revenue from a goods and services levy, India’s biggest tax innovation of recent times, continues to disappoint two years after its introduction by her predecessor, Arun Jaitley.With health, education and other government services also needing more money, the scope to free up funds by cutting public expenditure simply doesn’t exist. Nor is borrowing an option. Annual federal deficits can’t go much higher than $100 billion; borrowing by the public sector is already cornering resources equal to 8% of the economy even as the household sector barely manages to save 9% to 11% of GDP in financial assets.It’s what economists call a classic “crowding out” of the private sector. India Inc. is clamoring for lower costs of capital, but the level of public debt is keeping them elevated. Cuts in the central bank’s short-term policy rates can’t be passed on to private companies if they’re not even reducing the government’s long-term borrowing costs as much as they should. Besides, a shadow-banking crisis has made lenders mistrustful of the private sector’s solvency, especially for debtors that have anything to do with comatose real estate. That’s one more reason why inflation-adjusted borrowing costs are 5%-plus.A consensus is building around the idea that Sitharaman’s best option is to recycle public assets, something that Australian states such as New South Wales have successfully achieved with power grids and other assets. After Modi’s resounding election victory in May,  I wrote that India now has structures like Infrastructure Investment Trusts and a toll-operate-transfer model that it can use to monetize cash-generating toll roads, ports, airports and power plants. “The proceeds from these sales can be used in the creation of new assets,” economists at HSBC Holdings Plc said in a recent report. “As such, the same pot of money is recycled several times over, without endangering the fiscal deficit, and yet upgrading India's infrastructure.”Should Sitharaman take this road, she’ll find plenty of interest among investors such as Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management Inc., Australia’s Macquarie Group Ltd. and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte. India’s own National Investment and Infrastructure Fund, which is 51% private-owned, can be a powerful vehicle for mobilizing global interest.This is the right time. As much as $13 trillion of global debt now offers negative yields. Ten-year U.S. Treasuries yield less than 2%. If ready-made Indian infrastructure can offer dollar returns in the high single digits, it’ll get lapped up by yield-hungry investors.There are caveats, though. Although existing projects will carry no or little construction risk, they would be exposed to future regulatory uncertainty. Only risks that can be priced should be passed on to new owners. Moreover, it will be important for India to auction assets in a manner that leads to fair outcomes. Adani Enterprises Ltd. was the highest bidder for six functioning regional airports, leading one to wonder why others failed to see the value that it did. (India’s cabinet approved leasing three of those airports to Adani on Wednesday; a government spokesman refused to comment on approval for the remaining three.)  In a way, India’s 2016 insolvency law was also a recycling mechanism, albeit for corporate assets trapped under unsustainable debt. There was much hope that bankruptcies would attract global buyers. Those that did come – such as  ArcelorMittal and  Bain Capital – got a bruising legal ordeal. With $1 trillion required to build new infrastructure, India can’t afford similar bungling when it comes to state assets. That’s something Sitharaman should keep in mind. To contact the author of this story: Andy Mukherjee at amukherjee@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Matthew Brooker at mbrooker1@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Andy Mukherjee is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering industrial companies and financial services. He previously was a columnist for Reuters Breakingviews. He has also worked for the Straits Times, ET NOW and Bloomberg News.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Will Regulators Approve Deutsche's Lower Capital Request?
    Zacks21 days ago

    Will Regulators Approve Deutsche's Lower Capital Request?

    Deutsche Bank (DB) seeks regulators' approval to reduce capital buffer so that its CEO's major overhaul plans can be financed.

  • MUFG Seeks to Sell Remaining Portion of CNX Resources Bonds
    Zacks21 days ago

    MUFG Seeks to Sell Remaining Portion of CNX Resources Bonds

    Mitsubishi UFJ (MUFG) is likely to incur loss on its first deal as sole underwriter, as it continues to lower price of the bonds purchased from CNX Resources.

  • ACCESSWIRE21 days ago

    HSBC Bank plc Announces Post Stabilisation Notice

    LONDON / ACCESSWIRE / July 2, 2019 / HSBC (contact: Syndicate desk, telephone: +44 207 992 8066) hereby gives notice that no stabilisation (within the meaning of the rules of the Financial Conduct Authority) ...

  • Hong Kong Protests Are Giving Banks a Headache
    Bloomberg21 days ago

    Hong Kong Protests Are Giving Banks a Headache

    (Bloomberg Opinion) -- For years, global investors and financiers have identified Hong Kong as a wealthy, stable city. On many fronts, this assumption is now being called into question. Hong Kong dollar funding costs have soared amid tightening liquidity and political protests. Three-month Hibor rose above its U.S. dollar counterpart last month for the first time since December 2016. As central banks elsewhere start to cut rates, Hong Kong is singularly walking the other way, tightening money-market conditions to defend the city’s currency peg to the dollar. One may say this is just a sign that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority is doing its job. A shrinkage in the central bank’s aggregate balance causes interbank rates to rise: This is the mechanism that keeps the peg stable, raising the return for investing in Hong Kong dollars when liquidity flows out.Nonetheless, soaring Hibor deals a blow to the city’s investment banks. Investors have long borrowed in Hong Kong dollars to fund the purchase of new IPO shares or dollar bonds. I documented how private bankers were offering up to 90% margin financing for jazzy listings such as China Literature Ltd. during Hong Kong’s IPO frenzy in late 2017.With one-week Hibor doubling since then, investors playing the IPO game will require a much bigger first-day pop to make a profit. That threatens to damp enthusiasm just as investment banks prepare for a couple of marquee listings. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has filed for a share sale that could raise $10 billion, according to Caixin, and the Asia-Pacific unit of Anheuser-Busch InBev NV is targeting as much as $9.8 billion, IFRAsia reported Monday.It’s a similar picture for dollar bonds. Private banks have long offered 60% leverage to wealthy clients keen to buy into China’s high-yield developers. Higher borrowing costs may dim the appetite of these investors, too.Meanwhile, speculation over whether Hong Kong will abandon the peg has caused some savers to question whether they should move funds into U.S. dollars. It’s never been a foregone conclusion for locals to keep spare funds in their home currency. As of 2018, roughly half of deposits in the city were denominated in the Hong Kong dollar, with more than a third in greenbacks. Against this backdrop, the last thing Hong Kong financial firms need is another spike in borrowing costs caused by social unrest. The unprecedented ransacking of the legislature Monday has taken the city’s political crisis to a fresh level of intensity. Previous protests have coincided with increases in Hibor. Banks such as HSBC Holdings Plc can expect volatility in their net interest margins.To be sure, the interbank tension could dissipate in a matter of days. Local rates tend to rise near the end of the first half, as banks improve deposit rate offerings to burnish their accounting numbers. Three-month Hibor fell slightly on Tuesday morning, the first trading day of the second half.Global banks have long suffered from poor trading activity in their Hong Kong operations. They may be in for an even hotter and stickier summer than usual. To contact the author of this story: Shuli Ren at sren38@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Matthew Brooker at mbrooker1@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Shuli Ren is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian markets. She previously wrote on markets for Barron's, following a career as an investment banker, and is a CFA charterholder.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Reuters21 days ago

    UPDATE 5-China pledges to scrap financial sector ownership limits in 2020, one year early

    China will end ownership limits for foreign investors in its financial sector in 2020, a year earlier than scheduled, to show the world it will keep opening up its markets, Premier Li Keqiang said on Tuesday. China will also further open its manufacturing sector, including the auto industry, while reducing its negative investment list that restricts foreign investment in some areas, Li told the World Economic Forum in the northeastern Chinese port city of Dalian.

  • Deutsche Bank Plans to Reduce Global Headcount by 20,000
    Zacks22 days ago

    Deutsche Bank Plans to Reduce Global Headcount by 20,000

    Deutsche Bank (DB) aims to improve profitability by undertaking cost cuts due to muted performance of its investment banking segment.