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* Bank reiterates February cost-cutting plan
* HSBC apologises for dividend cut
* HSBC to report first quarter earnings on April 28
(Adds voting results, more details)
By Lawrence White
LONDON, April 24 (Reuters) - HSBC will press ahead with
plans to shift capital from underperforming businesses, cut
costs and strip out layers of management, despite problems
caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Chief Executive Noel Quinn said HSBC would proceed
"wherever possible" with a transformation plan outlined in
February, but had paused most of the associated redundancies.
Europe's biggest bank announced its latest cost-cutting plan
before the coronavirus spread across Europe, leading investors
to question whether HSBC would be able to carry it out.
The bank has said it will pause job cuts in order to avoid
disruption and leaving staff unable to find work elsewhere, but
Quinn's re-commitment to the February strategy in a filing ahead
of its annual shareholding meeting will remove some uncertainty.
Quinn has in recent weeks cut several top roles in HSBC's
investment bank and reshuffled his lieutenants, Reuters reported
on Monday.
It will be the first major British lender to report first
quarter earnings, on April 28, with a sharp rise in provisions
against bad loans expected as borrowers struggle amid the
economic lockdown.
HSBC also apologised again to shareholders for cancelling
its dividend, a move that sparked widespread outrage and a
possible lawsuit from Hong Kong retail investors, many of whom
rely on the payouts for a significant part of their income.
"We recognise that many shareholders are deeply disappointed
by the cancellation of the dividend and we profoundly regret the
financial consequences (it) will have on shareholders," HSBC
Chairman Mark Tucker said in the filing.
HSBC's annual meeting, which usually attracts hundreds of
shareholders as well as protesters eager to grill the bank on
issues ranging from climate change to pensions for former staff,
is this year not open to outsiders.
In common with other big companies, the bank is instead
holding a closed meeting, with a minimum quorum of company
directors and shareholders.
A resolution by former employees of Midland Bank, which HSBC
took over in 1992, to reverse the bank's decision to claw back
some of their pension allowance, was defeated in a shareholder
vote on Friday.
HSBC has defended reducing the benefits once the employees
reached state pension age, as an accepted UK pensions practice.
HSBC will later on Friday publish some of the more
frequently asked questions by shareholders, and its answers, in
place of the usual in-person interrogation its executives face
at the annual meeting.
(Reporting by Lawrence White, Editing by Alexander Smith and
Mark Potter)
