Standard Chartered
The figures
The London-based, Asia-focused bank
Revenue: $18.27bn (or 2.66 per cent decline)
Adjusted net income: $4.06bn (or 16 per cent drop)
Write-off: $3bn (largely on metals)
"The first-half numbers came in better than expected — revenue was $9.26 billion and adjusted net income was $2.35 billion when dealers were anticipating $9.22 billion and $2.31 billion respectively."
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Why it's interesting
Standard Chartered struggled over the last two years, due to falling commodity prices, and slowing emerging market economies such as China and India. This is something that's been compounded by problems relating to bad loans, as well as rising regulatory costs.
But its share price has almost halved since a long run of double-digit earnings growth ended in 2013.
Last year, the finance house has issued three profit warnings, and registered a 20 per cent drop in first half profits. It's suffered amid crumbling metal prices, such as gold and platinum, falling since the middle of the last year.
Last year, the bank revealed a cost-cutting package designed to turn its fortunes around, and it included cost-saving measures as well as the restructuring of its wealth management and retail banking divisions.
Its equities division has been all but shut down, and recently it was announced chief executive Peter Sands would step down in June and will be replaced by Bill Withers who's currently [XX] at JP Morgan.
Mr Winters faces challenges including cleaning up the bank’s books following a spike in bad loans, raising at least $4bn in capital to get the bank’s core capital ratio to 11% by the year-end, trimming costs further in an underperforming retail division and improving investment banking performance.