Standard Chartered has had a “very good start to the year”, shareholders heard at the bank’s annual meeting on Wednesday, with both its consumer and wholesale businesses showing “good momentum”. However, Peter Sands, chief executive, said in a trading update that there had been a charge to Q1 profits of $97m against the bank’s asset-backed securitisation portfolio, caused by a combination of impairment and widening credit spreads. Further, there had been a $156m charge on available-for-sale assets, which is taken against reserves rather than profits. Sands said the bank, which is heavily focused on emerging markets, had “no direct subprime exposure and very limited indirect exposure to US subprime assets”.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 5:40 and is filed under Capital markets. Tagged with standard chartered. Edit this entry.