HSBC under review

The bank's investment case is under review following its results and rights issue news

Erin Davis | 03-03-09 | E-mail Article

We're placing HSBC under review while we digest the impact of its rights offering as well as its fourth-quarter earnings release and outlook for the coming quarters. We expect to lower our fair value estimate moderately. While we had already incorporated a 66% chance of a capital-raising into our valuation, our fair value estimate is likely to fall as we increase this to 100% and incorporate the lower-than-expected offer price.

HSBC is offering the new shares at a 50% discount to Friday's closing price, deeper than the 30% discount we anticipated. It is a sign of HSBC's relative strength during the financial crisis that its rights offering is fully underwritten by its investment banks, Goldman Sachs and RBS Hoare Govett, among others, and that HSBC is not relying on government support like many of its peers.

HSBC also announced that it is closing its US consumer finance arm, formerly Household, and is taking a goodwill write-down of US$10.6 billion. Excluding the goodwill write-down, HSBC's full-year pretax profit of US$19.9 billion was well ahead of our expectations, mainly because credit quality has not deteriorated as quickly as we expected. Including the write-down, however, earnings failed to meet our expectations.

Erin Davis is an equity analyst at Morningstar US.

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