March 28, 2024

DealBook: Standard Chartered Profit Up 11% on Emerging-Markets Strength

Standard Chartered's headquarters in Hong Kong.Bobby Yip/ReutersStandard Chartered’s headquarters in Hong Kong. The bank is experiencing growth in Asia and other emerging markets.

LONDON — Bucking the industry trend of weak earnings, the British bank Standard Chartered reported on Wednesday that its net income rose 11.3 percent in the first half of the year on strength in Asia and other emerging markets.

The bank, whose activities are primarily based in developing economies, said net income for the six months through June 30 was $2.86 billion, compared with $2.57 billion for the period last year.

While many of its peers, like Deutsche Bank and Barclays, are scaling back their operations after the global financial crisis, Standard Chartered said it planned to increase its presence in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

The bank said that it would open more branches in countries with fast-growing economies, like China and India, and that it was looking to exploit the decrease in its competitors’ trading activity.

Despite signs that many emerging markets are slowing in response to problems in the West, Standard Chartered said it continued to see robust growth across the regions in which it works.

“Standard Chartered has performed strongly during the first six months of 2012,” the bank’s chairman, John W. Peace, said in a statement. “We have a firm grip on the business, with the ability to turn adversity to our advantage, and we will keep investing as we see long-term opportunities for growth.”

Shares of Standard Chartered closed up 2.1 percent on Wednesday, at £14.95 ($23.46).

The bank benefited from a 15.5 percent rise in operating profit in its wholesale banking unit, to $2.99 billion, while operating profit in its consumer banking division fell 11.3 percent, to $899 million.

The bank said its core Tier 1 capital ratio, a measure of a firm’s ability to weather financial shocks, stood at 11.6 percent based on accounting rules known as Basel III, down slightly from the same period last year.

Article source: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/standard-chartered-profit-rises-11-in-first-half/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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