Hsbc Holdings

HSBC Holdings, Europe's largest bank by market value, cut 1,100 jobs, or about 4% of its global banking and markets workforce, as the deepening financial crisis threatens to extend a decline in profit. HSBC is adding to about 120,000 financial jobs lost worldwide since the global credit crisis began just over a year ago.

The U.S. government is likely to file criminal charges related to money-laundering against HSBC Holdings, the international banking giant said in its third-quarter financial report. London-based HSBC, Europe's largest bank, reported Monday that it set aside an additional  $800 million to cover its liability in the case, bringing the total so far to $1.5 billion. The potential penalties could be "significantly higher," it said. Banks have fallen under heightened scrutiny amid evidence they have been used to funnel funds to terrorists and process dirty money for drug lords.

Sir William Purves, chairman of Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Holdings, one of Hong Kong's leading banks, will retire next year, the London-based banking group announced. A statement said Purves, 65, who joined the bank in 1954, will retire at the end of May. He has been chairman since 1986. He will be succeeded by John Bond, 56, who has been HSBC group chief executive since 1992. Bond will also succeed Purves as chairman of Midland Bank on Jan.

Moody's Investors Service slashed the credit ratings of more than a dozen giant global banks amid worries that Europe's economic turmoil could slow both profit and growth. The downgrades, announced after the close of U.S. financial markets Thursday, included Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. The move came as the 15 banks singled out by Moody's try to navigate through the European debt crisis, which could have a major effect on their trading businesses.

Shares of Washington Mutual Inc. rose 9% on Friday on speculation that the nation's largest savings and loan might be sold to HSBC Holdings, Britain's biggest bank. The conjecture mounted after Bill Aldinger, chief executive of HSBC North America Holdings Inc., this week told British newspapers that HSBC planned more U.S. acquisitions. A purchase of Seattle-based Washington Mutual would make HSBC about the same size as Citigroup Inc.

HSBC Holdings, Europe's biggest bank by market value, shut its three-man trading desk at the Chicago Board of Trade on Thursday, silencing the voice of its "squawk box" operator as electronic trading displaces face-to-face deals. "It's the way the market goes: It's downsizing," said Richard Johnson, who kept HSBC customers informed of prices in the Treasury futures pits with commentary piped directly to their desks. "Today's the last day for the squawk box, and I'll move on."

* HSBC Holdings, in the biggest cross-border takeover in European banking, agreed to buy Credit Commercial de France for $10.5 billion to boost business with wealthy investors and companies. The purchase of France's sixth-largest bank would give HSBC 1 million more clients and "makes us a serious player in the euro zone for the first time" said Sir John Bond, HSBC Chairman. London-based HSBC, which once functioned as the central bank of Hong Kong, is expanding in Europe and the U.S.

HSBC Holdings, a British banking powerhouse that makes consumer loans under the HFC and Beneficial brands in the U.S., is buying the $2.5-billion mortgage loan portfolio of Champion Mortgage for an undisclosed price. HSBC said in announcing the deal that the loan portfolio it was buying consisted of the mortgages of about 30,000 customers. Champion, based in Parsippany, N.J., is a unit of Cleveland-based KeyCorp. It serves mostly nonprime customers in 26 states.

HSBC Holdings met with shareholder criticism at its annual meeting in London over the pay of William Aldinger, head of its U.S. consumer finance business. Aldinger, chief executive of Household International Inc. when HSBC bought the company in March, got $20.3 million in severance for the termination of his contract. He will earn about $36 million in the next three years as head of all of HSBC's U.S. businesses. HSBC shares fell 21 cents to $59.27 on the NYSE. From Bloomberg News

Citigroup Inc. and HSBC Holdings, the world's two largest banks by market value, were the first foreign banks to receive approval to issue U.S. dollar credit cards to mainland Chinese residents. Citigroup's Citibank unit, with partner Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co., won approval from the China Banking Regulatory Commission and China's central bank to offer China's first dollar and yuan dual-currency credit cards, Pudong Bank said. New York-based Citigroup bought a 4.

The NAACP sued subsidiaries of two major banks Friday for allegedly steering African American borrowers unfairly into costly subprime mortgages. The suits -- against Wells Fargo Bank and Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Inc., owned by Wells Fargo & Co., and against HSBC Mortgage Corp. (USA) and HSBC Bank USA, owned by HSBC Holdings -- arrive at a time when the housing crisis and soaring unemployment already are causing disproportionate harm in black neighborhoods, leaders of the rights group said.

HSBC, Europe's largest bank by market value, on Monday reported a 70% drop in 2008 net profit and said it would raise $17.7 billion in new capital through a share issue, while cutting 6,100 jobs as it closes consumer loan businesses in the U.S. HSBC said it would scale back lending in the U.S. after being stung by the collapse in subprime mortgage-backed securities -- although its U.S. retail banking business will remain.

HSBC Holdings, Europe's largest bank by market value, cut 1,100 jobs, or about 4% of its global banking and markets workforce, as the deepening financial crisis threatens to extend a decline in profit. HSBC is adding to about 120,000 financial jobs lost worldwide since the global credit crisis began just over a year ago.

Morgan Stanley said Wednesday that it planned to bring to market what it believed would be the first sale of an Islamic bond by a multinational corporation. The bond sale is being coordinated by Morgan Stanley's Dubai office. Hugh Fraser, a spokesman for Morgan Stanley in London, declined to identify the corporation. The offering, which could take place this quarter, comes as multinational corporations are experiencing difficulties in U.S. corporate debt markets because of the ripple effects of the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

HSBC Holdings, Europe's largest bank, said Monday that it would bail out two troubled investment funds it manages by transferring about $45 billion of their assets onto its balance sheet. The bank said it would inject $35 billion into the funds, Cullinan Finance Ltd. and Asscher Finance Ltd., in a move to clarify responsibility for the funds and prevent liquidation of their assets.

Moody's Investors Service sent warnings Wednesday to Citigroup Inc. in New York and HSBC Holdings in London that it might downgrade their structured investment vehicles as the rating company reviews $33 billion worth of the debt. SIV "debt ratings continue to be vulnerable to the unprecedented large and sustained declines in portfolio value combined with a prolonged inability to refinance maturing debt," Moody's said.

HSBC Holdings, the world's second-largest bank, applied for a national charter for its U.S. bank operations to expand sales in the country. The new unit, HSBC Bank USA, which would be based in New Castle, Del., probably would receive its charter later this year, London-based HSBC said. The division would combine the company's New York state-chartered bank and national trust business. It wouldn't include HSBC's Household International, a consumer finance company.

Republic New York Corp., a subsidiary of HSBC Holdings, pleaded guilty to helping financier Martin Armstrong swindle Japanese investors and will pay them $606 million, the largest corporate criminal restitution ever ordered by a U.S. court. The charges against the unit of Britain's No. 1 banking company stem from Republic's involvement with Armstrong and his company, Princeton Economics International Inc.

HSBC Holdings, Europe's biggest bank, said Friday that it would close Decision One Mortgage, a U.S. unit that made sub-prime loans through independent brokers, cutting 750 jobs and taking $945 million in charges and write-downs. HSBC had sold the brokered sub-prime loans in the secondary markets but was no longer able to do so because investor demand has evaporated, said Thomas Detelich, group executive for HSBC North America Holdings Inc.

There's more trouble in the mortgage lending market -- and that could mean problems for higher-risk borrowers who want to refinance their home loans. An independent Orange County lender and Europe's largest bank both spooked Wall Street on Thursday by reporting huge losses on "sub-prime" mortgages to borrowers with bad credit, high debt loads or other risk factors. The bad news from Irvine's New Century Financial Corp.