HSBC Holdings (HSBC) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2023

May 2, 2023 2:30 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks：

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the investor and analyst conference call for HSBC Holdings plc's Q1 2023 results. For your information, this conference is being recorded.

At this time, I will hand the call over to Mr. Richard O'Connor, Group Head of Investor Relations.

Richard O'Connor

Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. Before I hand over to Noel, I want to give a quick reminder of the changes that have taken effect this quarter. Numbers in the presentation today are on IFRS 17 basis, and thank you to all those who attended the in March. Our focus is now on reported numbers but we will call out and specify notable items.

Our global businesses are still the primary basis of our reporting, but we have moved to legal entity rather than geographic regions as our secondary reporting line. Consensus hasn't yet fully caught up with all these changes, but now we've made them, we believe they will give you more clarity, transparency and ultimately benefit your modeling going forward. Noel over to you.

Noel Quinn

Thanks, Richard, and good morning in London, good afternoon in Hong Kong, and thank you for joining our first quarter results call. Georges is going to lead the presentation, but I'd like to make some opening comments.

We've announced a strong set of Q1 results. We delivered a strong profit performance, which was spread across all our major geographies. All 3 global businesses performed well and cost discipline remained tight.

In the first quarter, excluding the gain on SVB U.K. and the part reversal of the impairments on the potential sale of our French retail bank, we delivered an annualized return on tangible equity of 19.3%, so our strategy is working.

I'm also confident about the future for 2 main reasons: First, we have built a good platform for growth. We have a strong balance sheet, broad-based geographic profit generation, a good combination of net interest income and non-net interest income and a tight grip on costs. This growth potential was evidenced in the inflow of new invested assets of $22 billion in the quarter with a cumulative $93 billion over the last 12 months, which shows that our wealth strategy is continuing to gain traction. And you have my commitment that we will continue to drive strong performance for the rest of the year, while maintaining cost discipline and investing in growth.