Standard Chartered Plc said it would hand back US$1.5 billion ($2 billion) more to shareholders as it reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat estimates, boosted by a strong performance in its trading and wealth business.
The London-headquartered bank announced a fresh buyback which would bring total shareholder distributions to US$4.9 billion since 2023, it said in a statement Friday.
“Our strategy of combining differentiated cross-border capabilities for corporate and institutional clients with leading wealth management expertise for affluent clients is firing on all cylinders,” Chief Executive Officer Bill Winters said in a statement.
Adjusted pretax profit came in at US$1.05 billion for the three months through December, surpassing the Bloomberg-compiled analyst estimate of US$1.02 billion.
Operating income from global markets jumped 45% in the fourth quarter, thanks to a strong performance in macro and credit trading, while it rose 36% in wealth solutions. The lender said 265,000 clients were on-boarded in 2024, and it lured US$44 billion of net new money, driven by strong international flows.
The bank, which makes most of its money in Asia and the Middle East, is in the midst of a corporate cost-saving programme known as ‘Fit for Growth’ that is forecast to see it invest about US$1.5 billion in a range of initiatives to make it more efficient. About 10% of the cost of the programme was accounted for in 2024, and a half is expected to come this year, according to Chief Financial Officer Diego De Giorgi. Since the launch of the programme, the bank has mobilised over 200 projects during 2024, the lender said.
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January marked a major milestone for Winters as shares in the bank finally rose above the level they were at when he first took the CEO role about a decade ago. Last year, he had called the bank’s share price “crap” for languishing for far too long. The stock’s value has almost doubled in the past year and is now trading at £11.40 ($19.27) — higher than the £10.41 level at which it had closed on Winters’ first day on the job back in June 2015.
Winters is the longest serving boss of a major UK bank and during his tenure he has led several rounds of restructuring, an emergency rights issue, dealt with historic issues with US authorities over sanctions violations and fended off a takeover attempt by one of the UAE’s largest banks.
On his watch, Standard Chartered’s underlying return on tangible equity has more than doubled to 11.7% in 2024 from seven years earlier. With higher interest rates partly boosting earnings, the lender has focused on investor returns with buybacks and dividends, helped by exposure to Asia’s fast-growing economies.
