Did Stuart Gulliver get carried away at HSBC’s strategic update in June?

欧智华(Stuart Gulliver) 6月份宣布汇丰(HSBC)最新战略时忘乎所以了吗？

The bank’s chief executive talked enthusiastically about how it would redeploy $200bn of balance sheet capacity into faster-growing markets in Asia — in the Pearl River Delta region of China in particular.

汇丰的这位行政总裁当时热情地谈到，该行将如何把2000亿美元的资产负债表能力(balance sheet capacity)调配到亚洲较快速增长的市场，尤其是中国珠江三角洲地区。

Yet as he presented interim results yesterday, Mr Gulliver said he wanted to adjust the message.

然而，在昨天介绍中期业绩时，欧智华表示他想修正这一信息。

“A number of people came away with the impression that we were trying to jam $290bn of risk-weighted assets into the Pearl River Delta,” he told analysts. “There was a wrongful interpretation that the entire redeployment was in Asia because of the way we presented it on June 9. That is what I’m trying to correct.”

欧智华对分析师说：“一些人当时得出的印象是，我们试图将2900亿美元风险加权资产注入珠三角。受我们6月9日的表达方式影响，有人误以为这些资产将全部重新部署到亚洲。这就是我想要纠正的。”

In fact Mr Gulliver said that out of $290bn in risk-weighted assets that it plans to cut from underperforming activities, particularly in its investment bank, he was only confident of being able to redeploy about $150bn. Asia, he said, would account for about half of the money to be redeployed, with the rest being invested in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America.

事实上，欧智华表示，在汇丰计划从表现不佳的业务（特别是投行业务）中削减下来的2900亿美元风险加权资产中，他只确信能够重新部署约1500亿美元。他说，亚洲会从这笔钱中分走一半左右，剩下的将投资到欧洲、中东以及拉丁美洲。

Some analysts see this as an effort to dilute slightly its “pivot to Asia” strategy after the gyrations of China stock markets amid broader concerns about the country’s economic outlook.

一些分析师认为，欧智华这么说是在轻微淡化汇丰“将重心转向亚洲”的战略。此前，由于中国的经济前景引发了更广泛的担忧，中国股市出现了大幅震荡。

“They are changing their tack on the redeployment of capital, and it looks like they are now not quite so keen on China after all the market volatility of recent weeks,” Chirantan Barua, banks analyst at Bernstein, says.

伯恩斯坦(Bernstein)银行业分析师奇兰坦巴鲁阿(Chirantan Barua)表示：“在重新部署资本的问题上，他们正在调整战略。在近几周中国市场出现这么大波动后，他们现在似乎对中国不那么热衷了。”

Mr Gulliver, however, said that he did not see “anything alarming” from the market upheaval in China, and denied that this had made any impact on its strategy.

但欧智华表示，他没有从中国的市场动荡中看到“任何令人警惕的信号”，并否认这对汇丰的战略造成了任何影响。

Indeed, the increased volumes in Chinese equities trading due to an opening up of mainland markets to foreign investors helped HSBC to beat expectations in its first half results, as pre-tax profits rose 10 per cent.

事实上，由于中国向外国投资者开放境内市场，中国股票的交易量有所增加，推动汇丰今年上半年业绩超出预期，税前利润上升了10%。

This matters for several reasons.

这件事之所以重要，有如下几条原因。

First, decisions of where to reallocate vast chunks of HSBC’s $2.5tn balance sheet will have a big impact on the shape of what Europe’s biggest bank looks like in the future.

首先，有关将汇丰2.5万亿美元资产负债表中的大块资产调配到何处的决定，将对这家欧洲最大银行未来的形态产生很大影响。

Second, HSBC’s board continues to review whether to move its headquarters out of the UK.

其次，汇丰董事会仍在评估是否把总部迁出英国。

Chairman Douglas Flint dismissed the idea that this decision could be swayed by “evolutionary events” like the volatility in China stock markets.

有观点认为，该决定可能受中国股市波动等“发展中事态”左右，汇丰董事长范智廉(Douglas Flint)对此予以了驳斥。

However, the UK government recently promised to change the way its bank levy is calculated, shifting from global assets to domestic balance sheets of UK banks and handing a hefty tax cut to HSBC from 2020 in the process.

然而，英国政府最近发誓要改变银行税的计算方法，将征税对象从英国银行的全球资产改为其国内资产，汇丰将因此从2020年起得到大幅减税。

The bank backed away from a thinly veiled threat earlier this year to sell its UK retail bank, which it is being forced to hive off under ring-fencing laws. Mr Gulliver said it made good returns in the UK and its operation there was “a bank we’d like to keep”.

今年早些时候汇丰躲开了一个显而易见的威胁、没有出售其英国零售银行——按“圈护法”要求，汇丰须将英国零售银行剥离出去。欧智华表示，汇丰在英国取得了良好回报，而且其英国银行是“我们希望保留的一个银行”。

Some analysts are asking if Mr Gulliver’s promise to distribute half of the bank’s redeployed resources outside Asia might indicate a slight cooling of interest in a potential move of the HQ back to Hong Kong, where it was founded.

一些分析师在问，欧智华承诺要将汇丰重新部署的半数资产配置到亚洲以外地区，是否说明对总部可能迁回香港的兴趣略有降温？香港是汇丰的创建地。

Mr Gulliver played this down.

欧智华对这个问题作了淡化处理。

“I wouldn’t read anything into that...It is not related to any feeling of a slowdown in the Chinese economy because of the sell-off in the stock market,” he said.

他说：“我不会作任何这方面的解读……它与任何由股市抛售引起的中国经济放缓感受无关。”

Third, Mr Gulliver raised the prospect of returning excess capital to shareholders if the bank could not find sufficiently attractive opportunities to redeploy capital.

第三，欧智华还提出了这样一种可能性，即如果该行无法找到足够有吸引力的投资机会重新配置资本，它有可能把多余的资本返还给股东。

Iain Mackay, finance director, said this would be a decision for the end of 2016, once most of the heavy lifting in the restructuring is completed.

汇丰财务总监麦荣恩(Iain Mackay)表示，这或将成为2016年底的一项决定，届时重组中的重大任务多数都已完成。

But the bank is accruing capital at a healthy rate, and its common equity tier one ratio — a measure of financial strength — increased from 11.1 per cent to 11.6 per cent in the first half of the year.

不过，该行正以一种稳健的速度积累资本，今年上半年其普通股一级资本比率（衡量银行资金实力的一种指标）已从11.1%上升至11.6%。

After HSBC completes the sale of its Brazilian subsidiary to local rival Bradesco for $5.2bn that it announced on Monday, its common equity tier one ratio is expected to move above its 12 per cent target.

周一，该行宣布将把其巴西分行作价52亿美元出售给巴西国内的布拉德斯科银行(Bradesco)。该交易完成后，该行普通股一级资本比率预计会超过该行制定的12%的目标。

Mr Barua at Bernstein warns that investors have been excited about the potential for HSBC to return excess capital before and been disappointed when regulators raised their requirements for bank equity levels.

伯恩斯坦的巴鲁阿警告说，此前投资者一直对汇丰返还多余资本的可能性抱有热切的期待，当监管机构提高对银行股本水平的要求时，他们感到了失望。

But if HSBC comes through unscathed from the Bank of England’s stress tests later this year, which are focused on the potential impact of a Chinese crash, investors are likely to become increasingly excited about the potential for a return of capital.

不过，如果汇丰安然无恙地通过英国央行(BoE)今年晚些时候的压力测试（这次压力测试将主要聚焦中国崩盘的潜在影响），投资者很可能会对返还资本的前景抱有更加热切的期待。