HSBC profits drop, boss gets bonus
But the bank’s chief executive, Michael Geoghegan, has confirmed he will give up to £4m of his bonus to charity…
…as HSBC reports a 24 per cent drop in annual pre-tax profits (£4.7bn) for 2009 after a raft of write-downs.
Despite tough conditions, HSBC has not had to go cap in hand to the government unlike Lloyds and RBS. And, when one-off factors such as the write-downs are taken out of the equation, its underlying profits rose by 56 per cent to £8.8bn.
Still, it seems strange to be removing £4m from the balance sheet if you’re not going to keep it.
By contrast, the chief executives of the UK’s other big banks have waived bonus awards – John Varley, the boss of Barclays, RBS chief executive Stephen Hester and Eric Daniels, the boss of Lloyds Banking Group have all taken the soft option.
