HSBC Holdings PLC (HSBC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

HSBC Holdings PLC (NYSE:HSBC) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call February 21, 2023 3:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Noel Quinn - Group CEO

Georges Elhedery - Group CFO

Richard O'Connor - Global Head, IR

Conference Call Participants

Martin Leitgeb - Goldman Sachs Group

Amandeep Rakkar - Barclays Bank

Andrew Coombs - Citigroup

Omar Keenan - Crédit Suisse

Jason Napier - UBS

Guy Stebbings - BNP Paribas Exane

Tom Rayner - Numis Securities

Manus Costello - Bernstein Autonomous

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Investor and Analyst Conference Call for HSBC Holdings plc's Annual Results for 2022. For your information, this conference is being recorded. At this time, I will hand the call over to your host, Mr. Noel Quinn, Group Chief Executive.

Noel Quinn

Good morning to everyone in the room in London today, and great to see you all again, and good afternoon to those watching from Hong Kong and around the world. Before George takes you through the Q4 numbers, I'll start with a summary of our strategic progress.

When we started our transformation 3 years ago, we also revisited our core purpose and values. Opening up a world of opportunity is the reason HSBC exists. We are making it a reality for our customers. Our results today are evidence of that. And I'm pleased that our performance also demonstrates that our people are living and breathing our values, particularly the fourth value, which is get it done. I will demonstrate during the discussion today that we have achieved a lot over the last 3 years and that we are committed to doing even more.

I want to start by telling you the 3 elements I'm going to cover in the presentation today. Transformation was the first phase of our strategy execution. Three years ago, the fair criticism of HSBC was that unprofitable or subscale businesses and clients were dragging down good profitability from our international proposition and from the profits generated in Hong Kong and the U.K.

I'm pleased to say we've addressed this. Our international connectivity is now underpinned by good broad-based profit generation around the world. Delivery in 2022 is all about the good set of results we've just announced. I will come to the details later but I'm pleased adjusted profits before tax were up 17%.

We're firmly on track to achieve our returns target for 2023 onwards. And we expect to have substantial distribution capacity for higher dividends, more buybacks and potentially a special dividend in early 2024. But there's also so much more we can achieve. So the final element of the presentation is growth and returns.