HSBC chief executive Quinn in shock departure

HSBC group chief executive Noel Quinn said he was retiring after nearly five years in the job, in a shock announcement on Tuesday.

Quinn, 62, will remain in post until a new CEO is appointed. The news came as the lender posted a 1.8% drop in first-quarter profit to $12.7bn (£10bn), slightly higher than expectations and also unveiled a $3bn share buyback as revenues increased 3% to $20.8bn.

HSBC said net interest income, the difference between loan fees and cash paid out to savers, fell $300m to $8.7bn as customers shopped around looking for better returns. Non-interest income increased by $900m, as trading income came in at $1.3bn, mainly in global banking and markets.

"After an intense five years, it is now the right time for me to get a better balance between my personal and business life,” Quinn said.

Quinn became interim CEO when John Flint was ousted in 2019 after just 18 months in the job and then found the bank in the middle of the Covid pandemic after being given the role permanently in March 2020. He also axed 35,000 jobs as part of a £3.5bn-a-year cost-cutting exercise.

AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould said that although the result was slightly better than expectations, HSBC is "no longer the most-highly valued of the FTSE 100’s megabanks, on the basis of price to net asset, or book, value, and it is now one of the cheapest on an earnings and yield basis, as the cloud cast by China’s economic outlook continues to linger".

“Both Lloyds and NatWest trade on a higher multiple of book value (albeit very, very marginally) and only Standard Chartered is as cheap as HSBC on the basis of forward earnings multiples."

"This again suggests that the exposure to China and Asian emerging markets offered by both HSBC and Standard Chartered is no longer seen by investors as an asset but a potential challenge, at least in the near term."

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com