Boost for HSBC as major Chinese investor Ping An increases stake

HSBC has received a much-needed vote of confidence from its largest investor after China’s Ping An Asset Management increased its stake in the embattled bank.

The move comes after the lender was caught in the middle of rising diplomatic tensions between Washington and Beijing and as it attracts fresh criticism for its money-laundering compliance procedures.

Shares in HSBC, which is based in London but makes a large proportion of its profits in Hong Kong and China, jumped by almost 9% to 308.5p on Monday after the news that Ping An had increased its stake to 8% from 7.95%.

The rising share price was a much-needed fillip for investors who had watched as the bank’s shares slumped to a 25-year low last week, after allegations of money-laundering following the FinCen files leak. HSBC has said the information in the documents was “historical”.

Despite Monday’s rise, HSBC’s share price has still almost halved this year as the bank has become embroiled in the spat between the US and China, which some observers fear could severely damage its business.

China’s state-run media has reported that HSBC is being considered for inclusion on the Chinese government’s “unreliable entities” list of firms, which have supposedly harmed China’s interests.

Meanwhile, in early June, HSBC appeared to back Beijing’s contentious new rules relating to Hong Kong, immediately sparking controversy that the bank was supporting the anti-democratic laws that critics said would undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy under the one country, two systems framework.

During the same month, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, also accused HSBC of a “corporate kowtow” to Beijing, as he cited reports of Hong Kong-based executives at Next Media being unable to access their bank accounts.

While many of HSBC’s problems relate to it attempting to balance doing significant amounts of business in the east and the west, it has also been hit by the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic like many of its rivals.

Investors are said to be concerned by the prospect of lost revenues as global interest rates are slashed to record lows and after HSBC cancelled its dividend for the first time in 74 years because of the Covid-19 crisis.

It is not clear if Ping An’s increased investment is a political move, with the Chinese asset manager classifying the share purchase as “a long-term financial investment”.

Some bank watchers speculated that the stake building was more likely to have been driven by the belief that HSBC would start paying investors a dividend again soon.

Peter Garnry, the head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank, said Ping An had “said that it has confidence in the long-term prospects of the bank. The cancelled and subsequent discontinued dividend is viewed by Ping An as short-term and that dividends will resume as the outlook improves.”