HSBC’s battered share price bounced back from 25-year lows today thanks to China’s Ping An Asset Management again raising its stake in Britain’s biggest bank.
Ping An now owns 8% of HSBC, up from 7.95% before.
While that is a relatively small rise, it helped restore some confidence in a lender biffed by fresh money laundering claims and tension between Washington and Beijing.
The shares rose 8.5% to 308p, leaving the bank valued at £63 billion.
The stock has more than halved in a year with some analysts insisting its problems remain unchanged.
Ping An is partly betting that HSBC, a cash producing machine in normal times, will soon resume dividends.
A spokesman said: “Ping An believes HSBC’s suspension of dividend payments is a short-term issue and has been actively communicating with the lender about the possibility of restoring dividends in the future.”The bank had plunged to 25-year low in part on speculation a massive bet on China could be thwarted, according to Bloomberg.
The ruling Communist Party’s Global Times newspaper reported that the bank could be put on an “unreliable entity” list that aims to punish firms,organisations or individuals that damage national security. It has rankled China over its participation in the U.S.investigation of Huawei Technologies Co.
HSBC was among global banks named in a report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists on lenders that “kept profiting from powerful and dangerous players” in the past two decades even after the US imposed penalties on the institutions, Bloomberg reports.
