Shares in Standard Chartered plunged on Tuesday

Shares in Standard Chartered plunged on Tuesday after the Asia-focused bank revealed a $1.5bn (£1.1bn) loss.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35639284

The bank will take a $4bn charge on writing down the value of its loans, driven by falling commodity prices and deterioration of Indian markets.

Shares in the bank tumbled by 4% to a record low of 418.7p.

CEO said: “It rips at our soul every time we look at these numbers and we don’t ever want to have to stand up and tell this story again.”



And that’s not all.

StanChart faces accusations over ‘dirty debt’.  It bought a $100 million “dirty debt” from a M’sian bank and used it to demand compensation from the Tanzanian government despite knowing that the loan had been part of an embezzlement scheme, according to claims in a legal row in Tanzania. The debt was originally owed to the M’sian bank by a M’sian company, Mechmar.

Update qt 7.00am: HoHoHo woild endorse this spin Sir John Peace, Standard Chartered’s outgoing chairman, said: “While our 2015 financial results were poor, they are set against a backdrop of continuing geo-political and economic headwinds and volatility across many of our markets as well as the effects of deliberate management actions.”

Don’t blame us. World’s in bad shape. We juz reflecting it.

 Cynical Investor



What had happened to Stanchart is nothing new. Remember those American and European banks that were declaring billions of dollars of profits till the eve of the financial crisis? Yes they were reporting how well they were doing and how many billions they were making. Then overnight all declared bankrupt with big holes in their accounts that could not be patched and needed to be saved by the govt?


When  big banks are reporting big big profit, be very careful. With the world economy in a limbo, with many companies losing money, how did the banks made all the big big profits, in the billions? Are the banks so clever, like the casinos?  Wait for more ‘Stancharts’ to reveal themselves and the big holes they are hiding.