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Standard Chartered’s outgoing head of investment banking has sold £9.64mn of shares days after the bank revealed he would be leaving amid a corporate shakeup.
Simon Cooper, who joined StanChart in 2016 from HSBC, made the sale on March 14, during the same week that the bank announced his departure, made five promotions, amid a management restructure and cost-cutting drive.
Cooper said on LinkedIn that “it felt like the right time to seek a new challenge and pass the baton next month to two hugely experienced colleagues”. Roberto Hoornweg and Sunil Kaushal will replace Cooper as co-heads of corporate and institutional banking.
Cooper had been considered a top internal pick to replace Bill Winters as chief executive, whose nine-year tenure makes him the UK’s longest-serving big bank boss. Chief financial officer Diego De Giorgi, who joined last August, is now deemed to be the leading internal candidate for the top role.
StanChart shares rose on the morning of its annual results last month, when it announced a 50 per cent dividend hike and a $1bn (£787mn) share buyback programme. At a press conference on results day, Winters acknowledged the group’s poor share price performance and committed to further efforts to revitalise the bank’s fortunes. Shares have sunk by a third since Winters took charge in 2015 and trade at around half net asset value.
Meanwhile, the bank hopes to save $1.5bn by exiting countries where it is making losses, such as Lebanon and Jordan. Total operating expenses rose 6 per cent to $11.5bn in 2023.
Analysts at UBS see the stock as cheap but said after the results that they had expected more from the share buyback plan. They said the expected total payout of $5bn, including the $1bn announced, was “much lower than the implied capital generation of the plan”, which they calculated to be around $7bn.
Entain’s interim chief buys shares
Former Entain chief executive Jette Nygaard-Andersen resigned last December following investor unrest over the acquisition spree she presided over. As part of a bid to rejuvenate its share price — down 35 per cent over the last year — Entain is now considering selling off some of those acquisitions. The Financial Times reported last week that the company has hired advisers for those disposals, with units in the potential firing line including the Netherlands brand BetCity and Baltics brand Enlabs.
Investors are doubtless already weary of the company’s underperformance against rivals. Entain has struggled with weaker-than-expected online revenue growth and is struggling to keep up with peers in the US. A case with HM Revenue & Customs regarding historic bribery allegations at its legacy Turkish business, resulting in a £585mn deferred prosecution agreement, has not helped sentiment. This charge contributed to the £843mn pre-tax loss for 2023 that the company reported earlier this month, along with significantly higher amortisation and impairment postings.
The good news was that net gaming revenue (NGR) climbed 14 per cent to £4.83bn last year. The performance of BetMGM, the US joint venture with MGM Resorts International, was notable, with NGR rising 36 per cent to $1.96bn. Regulatory threats will not abate anytime soon, though, with management warning last month that cash profits could be hit by £40mn this year because of new UK stake caps on online slot games and deposit limits in the Netherlands.
Interim chief executive Stella David seems to think there is hope for the share price following Nygaard-Andersen’s exit. She bought £478,000 in shares on March 11, the same day her husband picked up £945,000 in shares.
