Standard Chartered Bank said Tuesday its 2017 underlying pre-tax profit jumped to $3.01 billion — handily beating estimates thanks to rising interest rates and efforts to streamline operations.
The latest full-year underlying profit by the bank was 175 percent higher than the $1.093 billion posted one year ago in 2016, and better than the $2.978 billion average projection by analysts in a Reuters poll.
Stanchart also proposed a full-year dividend of 11 cents, after it stopped doing so in 2016.
“The trebling of underlying profits, a strong capital position and emerging regulatory clarity allows us to resume paying dividends,” Bill Winters, Stanchart’s group chief executive, said in a statement accompanying the earnings announcement.
The group chairman, Jose Vinals, said in the same statement that the board “understands the importance of the ordinary dividend to shareholders and intends to increase the full year dividend per share over time.”
The bank’s Hong Kong-listed shares traded 2.7 percent higher at 1:05 p.m. HK/SIN following the release of Stanchart’s latest earnings report.
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