HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe’s largest bank, posted a fourth-quarter loss as income from lending fell, loan-impairment charges increased and it booked fair-value losses on its debt.
The lender’s shares erased earlier gains in Hong Kong on Monday after the bank reported in an exchange statement a pretax loss of $858 million, compared with a profit of $1.73 billion a year earlier.
Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg on average forecast a $1.95 billion profit for the quarter.
The result, depressed in part by the rising cost of bad loans to oil and gas companies, marks a setback to Chief Executive Officer Stuart Gulliver’s efforts to bolster profitability and reverse a share slump.
