HSBC’s profits rose 16% during chief executive John Flint’s first year at the helm, but a difficult fourth quarter and slumping fixed income revenues meant it missed analyst expectations. The UK bank made a pre-tax profit of $19.9bn in 2018 — below the $21.3bn predicted by banking analysts tracked by Refinitiv, the data provider. A 5% increase in group revenues, to $53.8bn, was also below consensus. Flint,...
UK bank HSBC fell short of analyst expectations with a 16% rise in profits for 2018, and pointed to uncertainty around Brexit as a major contributing factor. The bank’s chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, said the results were “disappointing”, but that it was still on track to meet its targets set out by Mr Trump. In addition to Brexit, the bank highlighted difficulties arising from the US-China trade war, as well as uncertainty in terms of future interest rates.