Chandigarh February 21 : Standard Chartered Plc has announced that it will be returning $1.5 billion (over ₹13,000 crore) to shareholders. This comes after the company’s fourth-quarter earnings outperformed estimates on the back of a strong performance in trading and wealth business.
The bank announced a buyback which would being the total money returned to shareholders since 2023 to $4.9 billion.
“We are delivering what we promised our shareholders, which is sustainably higher returns from a high growth business,” Chief Financial Officer Diego De Giorgi said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “We have had good performance — but we’ll keep our eye on the ball and continue executing and hope the market will continue to reward us. But there is more to do no doubt,” he said.
Notably, the bank’s shares have risen above the level they were at when CEO Bill Winters took over the company about a year ago. Last year, he had called the bank’s share price “crap” for languishing for far too long.
Standard Chartered’s strength in numbers
The stock’s value has almost doubled since then and is now trading at £11.40 — higher than the £10.41 level at which it had closed on Winters’ first day on the job back in June 2015.
Summary: Standard Chartered announces a ₹13,000 crore return to shareholders, citing strong financial performance and surplus capital as reasons for the decision.