hong Kong 08 01, 2012, 11:50 IST
Standard Chartered
The London-headquartered lender, under Chief Executive Peter Sands, rode on Asia's rise for much of the past decade, allowing it to continue hiring and posting earnings growth when much of the industry was shrinking.
"The second quarter was very tough for everybody, so for them to achieve such growth is very decent," said Dominic Chan, an analyst at BNP Paribas in Hong Kong.
StanChart reported a January-June pretax profit of $3.95 billion, up 9 percent from a restated $3.64 billion in the same period a year ago.
That was slightly above market expectations for $3.7 billion, according to the average of six analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. It is in line with the company's guidance in June, when it said it expects pretax profits to rise by a high single-digit percentage.
But StanChart's January-June pretax profit growth is the slowest in a decade, hit by a slowdown in the consumer bank and "economic and political paralysis" in one of its biggest markets, India.
"In India as elsewhere, we need to strike the right balance between tactically responding to immediate developments and keeping a view on the longer-term prize," CEO Sands said.
Even with the slowing growth, StanChart has outperformed most of its peers. Bigger rival HSBC
This has pushed StanChart's London-listed shares up 4 percent this year, outperforming the 1 percent advance on the FTSE 100 index.
Following the earnings release, its Hong Kong-listed shares <2888.HK> were unchanged, roughly in line with the 0.2 percent advance on the benchmark Hang Seng Index.
WHOLESALE BANK GAINS
StanChart also said it is on course to deliver revenue and earnings per share growth of at least 10 percent this year, while maintaining cost growth to largely match income growth -- also known as flat jaws.
The wholesale bank, which includes its investment banking operations, was StanChart's star performer, reporting a 16 percent rise in pretax earnings.
This, in turn, pushed up earnings at the two Asian financial hubs of Singapore and Hong Kong. Pretax earnings in the bank's Hong Kong operations was up 10 percent, while Singapore's pretax earnings rose 17 percent.
In China and India, the bank expects to reach 100 branches in each country by early 2013, up from about 90 branches currently, StanChart said.
"We have had a strong July, but we are watchful of the significant and growing challenges in the external world, and we are managing risk tightly," Sands said.
(Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
