By Lawrence White
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Standard Chartered Plc said operating profit for the third quarter dropped 16 percent and earnings would fall in the second half as a whole, hurt by a jump in bad loans and higher regulation and compliance costs.
The Asia-focused bank also said on Tuesday it would target a further $400 million in cost reductions for 2015, as it reshapes itself to combat a downturn in emerging markets which had previously been a tremendous engine of growth, driving it to 10 straight years of record profits before 2013.
"Whilst some of these actions will impact near term performance, they are crucial to getting us back to a trajectory of sustainable, profitable growth," Chief Executive Peter Sands said in a statement.
Operating profit for the July-September quarter fell to $1.5 billion from $1.8 billion in the same period a year ago.
StanChart said it now expected underlying profits in the second half to be lower than the same period last year, partly due to a higher UK bank tax and regulatory and restructuring costs.
It had previously said it expected profits to fall in 2014 for a second straight year, but that earnings in the second half would be higher than a year ago.
By 0715 GMT, its Hong Kong listed shares were down 3.6 percent.
The lender has been hit by losses in South Korea and other challenges including a slowdown in growth in many of its core emerging markets and weak trading activity.
"Standard Chartered will struggle to drive returns above cost of capital in the next 12-18 months. Structural issues around competition and reliance on low RoA (return on assets) businesses are biting," said Bernstein analyst Chirantan Barua.
The bank is also under heavy regulatory scrutiny, having warned on Aug. 6 that it faced its second fine in two years from New York's financial regulator for problems in its anti-money laundering controls.
StanChart said impairments for the third quarter rose to $539 million from $250 million in the same period last year, as a small number of corporate and institutional clients were hammered by weak commodity markets.
"We remain watchful in India, in China and of commodity exposures more broadly, where we have continued to tighten our underwriting criteria and reduce our exposures," it said.
In Asia, StanChart's results in the last two years have been weighed down by big losses in South Korea, where it took a $1 billion hit in 2013 amid rising bad debts, a long-running dispute with staff and tough domestic competition.
StanChart began to restructure its Korean business in 2011. Since then it has reduced its number of branches by 69 to 313, cut staff and sold two consumer finance units.
The bank also said in August this year it made a $175 million provision to cover its exposure to suspected commodities fraud in China.
StanChart's shares have fallen 20 percent in the year to date in London, against a 5 percent decline in the benchmark FTSE 100 index.
(Reporting by Lawrence White; Additional reporting by Steve Slater in London; Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Mark Potter)
