Outgoing Standard Chartered boss Sands announces cuts

摘要

Standard chartered's outgoing chief executive Peter Sands has set out a series of measures to save US$1.8bn in costs over the next three years and cut up to US$30bn of risk-weighted assets in order to boost the bank's capital Tier 1 ratio above 11%. However, some analysts still believe incoming chief executive Bill Winters, who takes over in June, may yet launch a capital-raising of around US$5bn - as well as other initiatives designed to get the Asia-focused bank back on track. "Clarity on whether new capital is going to be issued is unlikely to be forthcoming until much later this year, once the new management is in place," said John-Paul Crutchley, an analyst at UBS. He predicts that rather than raise capital, StanChart may be more likely to halve the dividend. "At the moment, management are attempting to 'triangulate' their way to an 11%-12% CET1 ratio. This appears a near-impossible task, at least not without significantly better macro conditions including meaningfully higher commodity prices," said Alex Potter, an analyst at Miribaud.