Operator
Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Investor and Analyst Conference Call for HSBC Holdings Plc's Earnings Release for First Quarter 2016. For your information this conference is being recorded. At this time, I will hand the call over to your host, Mr. Stuart Gulliver, Group Chief Executive. Stuart Thomson Gulliver - Group Chief Executive Officer & Executive Director: Thanks very much. So good afternoon from Hong Kong, good morning to everyone in London, and welcome to our first quarter results call. With me today is Iain, who's going to talk through the detailed financial performance. We'll both then take questions. But I'll start by pulling out a few highlights. Our first quarter performance was resilient in market conditions that changed the entire banking industry. Against a very strong first quarter of 2015, profits were down, although we increased market share in many of the product areas that are critical to our strategy. Market uncertainty led to extreme levels of volatility in January and February, which affected our ability to generate revenue in our Market and Wealth Management businesses. Both businesses recovered well in March. Our diversified Universal Banking business model helped to cushion the impact through growth in other parts of the bank. Commercial Banking continued its momentum in spite of the slowdown in global trade. And we increased market share across our strategic trade corridors. We also grew revenue elsewhere in Retail Banking and Wealth Management, particularly current accounts and savings in Hong Kong and the U.K. and personal lending in Asia and Mexico. The combination of tight cost management and the increasing impact of our cost savings programs reduced operating expenses compared to the fourth quarter and kept them broadly unchanged compared to the first quarter of 2015. Loan impairment charges were down by $450 million compared to the fourth quarter and up by $692 million compared to the first quarter of 2015. We maintained a strong common equity tier 1 ratio of 11.9%, adding $800 million to capital, net of dividends. We also maintained a strong leverage ratio of 5%. In March we sold $10.5 billion equivalent to TLAC securities in U.S. dollars and euros across five separate tranches in a range of maturities in both fixed and floating format. Our order books were well oversubscribed in spite of market volatility and difficult new issue conditions, with demand from an extremely broad range of investors. This was the largest senior unsecured fundraising by a bank since 2008. And it reopened the benchmark wholesale funding markets to U.K. and European bank holding companies. Our targeted initiatives removed another $15 billion of risk-weighted assets in the first quarter. The risk-weighted assets increased overall, due to an increase in corporate lending. There were also higher market volatility, and some corporate credit downgrades also increased risk-weighted assets. We remain on track to hit our risk-weighted asset reduction target. The technical body of the Brazilian Competition Agency has now recommended to its board that the sale of our Brazil business be approved. We await a final decision from the Competition Agency. This is the final regulatory approval required prior to the completion of the transaction. Completing the transaction will add approximately 60 basis points to our common equity Tier 1 ratio. Our Asian businesses continue to gain momentum. We made important market share gains in debt capital markets, China M&A, and syndicated lending. We also had strong business wins on the back of our increased investment in Asia. And we extended our leadership in services related to renminbi internationalization. Iain is going to now take you through the numbers. Iain James Mackay - Executive Director & Group Finance Director: Thanks, Stuart. Looking quickly at some key metrics for the first quarter. The reported return on average ordinary shareholders' equity was 9%; the reported return on average tangible equity was 10.3%; and on an adjusted basis we had a negative jaws of 2.8%. The movement in jaws was mainly due to a 3.8% decline in adjusted revenue, which exceeded a 1% fall in adjusted costs. This next slide takes us from reported to adjusted. Reported profit before tax of $6.1 billion for the first quarter included a $1.2 billion gain for fair value on our own debt relating to credit spread and $479 million of other significant items. Allowing for these items leaves an adjusted profit before tax of $5.4 billion for the first quarter. You will find more details on these adjustments in the Appendix. And we'll focus on adjusted numbers for the remainder of this presentation. This next slide shows a comparison with the fourth quarter of 2015. Adjusted profit before tax was $3.6 billion higher than the fourth quarter due to higher revenue, lower loan impairment charges, and costs. You'll recall that the bank levy influences the fourth quarter numbers. Excluding the bank levy operating expenses fell by $236 million. Loan impairment charges were $450 million lower, mainly in Commercial Banking. The fourth quarter included an increase in specific loan impairment charges in a small number of countries, which largely reflected local factors and collective charges relating to oil and gas. Slide 6 breaks down adjusted profit by global business and geography on a period-by-period basis. These profits were achieved in challenging market conditions and relative to a very strong first quarter last year. The main business drivers of the reduction in profit were lower revenue in Global Banking and Markets and Retail Banking and Wealth Management, and increased loan impairment charges in Global Banking and Markets, principally related to oil and gas and metals and mining. We split out Brazil from the rest of the group here to show the impact that it had on our numbers in the first quarter. This also gives you a basis for comparison for when Brazil drops out of our numbers following completion of the transaction. We expect this to have a positive impact on operating expenses, loan impairment charges, and capital. Slide 7 shows an analysis of revenue. As Stuart said earlier, conditions in the first 2 months of the year were difficult, particularly in our Markets business and Wealth Management. There was a clear improvement in March however, and that continued into April. Recall that our performance in the first quarter of 2015 included the positive impact of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect and the strong renminbi market, which benefited us more than most. It's worth noting that our revenues are down no more than the industry average in spite of this. In Principal Retail Banking and Wealth Management, revenue was $270 million [lower] or 5% lower than the first quarter of 2015. This was mainly in Wealth Management, caused by the impact of adverse movements in interest rates and equity markets and life insurance, as well as lower customer activity. We did however, grow revenue from customer accounts in Hong Kong and the U.K. and from higher personal lending in Latin America and Asia. Commercial Banking revenue continued to grow, driven by higher average balances in payments and cash management and further loan growth. Client-facing Global Banking and Markets revenue was down by $286 million or 7%, compared to a strong performance in the prior year. In common with the rest of the banking industry extreme levels of market volatility led to reduced client activity in our Markets business, particularly in equities and credit and foreign exchange. Revenue was up in rates. There was a $172 million reduction in revenue from balance sheet management, due in large part to lower gains on disposal of available for-sale securities. Global Private Banking revenue was down by $87 million or 15% due to lower brokerage and trading activity in Europe and Asia. However, we attracted $4 billion of net new money in the quarter. Other provided $179 million of revenue in the first quarter. This included favorable fair value movements associated with long-term debt issued by HSBC Holdings. These are related to interest and exchange rate risk but not our own credit spread, which we excluded from adjusted performance. In last year's first quarter Other had losses of $200 million, mainly from the adverse impact of certain intra-group adjustments. This means that revenue for Other was up by $379 million on a quarter-by-quarter basis. Loan impairment charges were $692 million higher than the first quarter of 2015 but $450 million lower than the fourth quarter. $159 million of the increase on the first quarter of 2015 came specifically from Brazil, due to difficult economic and trading conditions. These were mostly collectively assessed impairments in Retail Banking and Wealth Management. The increase also includes an adjustment of around $100 million in our U.S. run-off portfolio. Charges in wholesale were up by $380 million. Q1 included additional specific charges related to oil and gas, mainly in the U.S. and Canada. There was also a charge in Australia relating to metals and mining, as well as higher specific charges in a small number of countries. As the chart shows, the level of loans reported as past due but not impaired continues to reflect our risk management. And as we said at our annual results, we continue to monitor oil and gas sector closely and to manage our exposures accordingly. There is a detailed overview of our oil and gas and metals and mining exposure in the Appendix. Adjusted operating expenses were $76 million or 1% lower than the first quarter of 2015. Excluding bank levy adjustments in each period, we were successful in keeping costs broadly unchanged, in spite of the effect of inflation and $743 million of investment in regulatory programs and compliance. This investment reflected the continued implementation of our global standards program and other requirements. As we said in June, we expect this investment to continue throughout 2016 and to flatten in 2017, as increased automation and process improvements take effect. You will recall that our cost savings program is designed to cover the cost of investment in global standards, investment in growth, and the impact on inflation, as well as to achieve an exit rate equivalent to 2014 by the end of 2017. In Commercial Banking our cost reduction initiatives neutralized the effect of both inflation and increased investment in global standards. These included our simplified organization structure and process optimization within our lending, on-boarding, and servicing platforms. Costs were down marginally in Retail Bank, Wealth Management, as investment in our Asia branch network and inflationary pressures were more than offset by cost savings, including our digital transformation and branch optimization programs. Costs fell in Global Banking and Markets due primarily to lower staff performance costs in Asia, Europe, and United States. This continues the good start that we made to our cost-saving program. And we remain confident of hitting our cost target. Rebased for currency translation and the sale of Brazil, that target is now $29.1 billion. Turning to capital, the group's common equity Tier 1 ratio is maintained at the 11.9%. We increased common equity Tier 1 capital by $2 billion in the first quarter. This was from capital generation through profits, net of dividends, of around $800 million. And we benefited from favorable foreign currency translation differences of $1 billion. While total risk-weighted assets increased in the first quarter, we continued to make progress with our risk-weighted assets initiatives. The next slide sets out the movement in more detail. The increase in risk-weighted assets in the first quarter was a result of book size and quality. Growth in book size was mainly driven by two things, increased corporate lending, mainly in Commercial Banking and Global Banking and Markets, and increased market volatility and client activity impacting counterparty credit risk and market risk. Each of these accounted for around half of the movement in book size. Book quality represents risk-weighted asset movements due to changes in the underlying credit quality of our customers. These movements were partially offset by our continued progress in RWA initiatives. At our investor update in 2015 we set a target to reduce group's risk-weighted assets by $290 billion by the end 2017. The chart in the top right of the page shows this target adjusted for the latest foreign exchange rates. This gives a rebased target of $279 billion. Since the start of 2015 we've reduced risk-weighted assets by $139 billion, of which $15 billion was in the first quarter of this year. These reductions include legacy credit and U.S. run-off portfolios. Our risk-weighted asset reduction plans are on track, and we remain confident of hitting our targets by the end of 2017. The reported return on risk-weighted assets was 2.2%, compared to 2.4% in the first quarter of 2015. We continue to work towards an adjusted return on risk-weighted assets of greater of 2.3% for 2017. I'll now hand back to Stuart. Stuart Thomson Gulliver - Group Chief Executive Officer & Executive Director: Thank you. This slide provides a summary of our progress in the 11 months since our investor update. Iain has already talked about risk-weighted assets. And I've already talked about Brazil. So I'm going to concentrate on the other actions here. Our U.S. and Mexico businesses are heading in the right direction. Adjusted profits in our principal U.S. business grew by 29% to $181 million, largely due to lower operating expenses. Revenue was up by another 4%. And we've continued to make solid progress in running down our U.S. CML legacy portfolio, including the disposal of a $1.4 billion tranche in April. In Mexico adjusted profit before tax of $72 million was up 104% from the first quarter of 2015. This was due to higher lending balances in Retail Banking and Wealth Management, higher insurance revenues, and improved collaboration between Retail Banking, Wealth Management, and Commercial Banking. We're also gaining good traction in terms of cross-border business within the area covered by NAFTA. We have double-digit growth in Commercial Banking across the free-trade zone. And we're currently winning around three out of four cross-border deals in the region. As Iain has already said, we've made good progress in operating expenses, while continuing to invest in growth initiatives and regulatory programs in compliance. All of our cost programs are now underway. We've reduced employee numbers by around 6,000 since the first quarter of last year. And the sale of Brazil will reduce FTEs by a further 19,000 to bring the group total to 235,000. This compares with 295,000 on the 31 of December 2010. As this trend illustrates, we've got a good grip on costs. Although progress will not be linear, we're confident of hitting our target by the end of 2017. Our Payment & Cash Management business maintained its strong momentum with an increase of 7% on the first quarter of last year. The Global Trade and Receivables Finance maintained its position in a slow-trade environment and captured additional market share across our top 23 strategic corridors. In the first quarter we also received clearance to offer our own credit cards in Mainland China. Adjusted profit before tax was $357 million in ASEAN, which was up 14% due to lower LICs and lower costs. We've also increased assets under management in Asia by 10% in the first quarter and grew revenue from insurance manufacturing new business premiums in Asia by 18% to around $600 million. Revenue from renminbi internationalization was down, but we have strengthened our leadership position in the quarter. I'll talk more about this on the next slide. Slide 14 shows the numbers behind the story. We've increased our market shares across a number of product lines, as we've invested in the business and as competitors have withdrawn from some of our core markets. In the first quarter we held our share of the market in Global Trade and Receivables Finance, but increased our market share in four out of five regions in Documentary Trade. We also strengthened our leadership position in Payment & Cash Management. We are a market leader in Asia advisory business and strengthened that position considerably. We're the established number one underwriter in debt capital markets. And we've retained our number one ranking for syndicated loans in Hong Kong and Mainland China and further increased our market share there. We've also dramatically increased our share at the Asian M&A market. Finally, we've retained our number one position in the league tables for offshore renminbi bonds and have a 52% share of the Securities Services RQFII market. This puts us in an excellent position not just to benefit from a more stable renminbi market but from the relaxation of investment barriers for onshore bonds and the likely rollout of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect later this year. No other bank is in as strong position to capitalize on these opportunities. In summary, we've shown resilience and made further progress towards the completion of our strategic actions. We intend to keep reporting on this progress on a quarterly basis. The market volatility that affected the first 2 months of the year has largely stabilized. March was a better month than both January and February. And April has continued in broadly the same vein. Despite the difficult conditions our diversified and balanced business has enabled us to continue to generate growth and to capture market share where possible. There continues to be plenty of revenue opportunities available to us in the coming quarters, particularly in the areas that we are targeting for growth. The planned Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect and the opening up of the China intra-bank bond market will enable us to capitalize on our market access in Asia. The increase in Chinese ODI and M&A involving Chinese firms plays to our leadership of the Asian advisory market. And the rollout of the Belt and Road initiative and the growth of green finance will create opportunities in infrastructure finance and green bonds, both of which are already significant areas of strength for HSBC. We are confident of achieving our target of $4.5 billion to $5 billion of cost savings by the end of 2017. And our strong balance sheet gives us the latitude to manage the business for the long term in accordance with our strategy. We'll now take questions. The operator will explain the procedure and then introduce the first question. Operator?