HSBC third-quarter profits down 86% after Brazilian sell off

HSBC has reported an 86% fall in pre-tax profits for the third quarter, as it felt the strain of adverse currency movements and accounted for a £1.4bn loss on the sale of its Brazilian unit.

Pre (Shanghai: 600048.SS - news) -tax profits fell to $843m (£678m) in the September quarter, down from $6.1bn (£5bn) for the same period last year, and much lower than the £2bn that analysts had forecast.

However, increased revenue from HSBC's global banking and markets business helped adjusted pre-tax profits.

They beat expectations, rising 7% for the quarter to $5.6bn (£4.5bn) compared with the same period in 2015.

The results, which are worse than expected, come after Lloyds, Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) and RBS (LSE: RBS.L - news) all showed signs of coping better than expected in the aftermath of Britain's vote to leave the EU.

In August, the bank reported its core profit for the first half of the year had fallen 29% below estimations.

CEO Stuart Gulliver said he remained optimistic and that the lender's core capital ratio, a key measure of financial strength, increased to 13.9% at the end of September, from 12.1% at the end of June.

"Reported profits were down, but adjusted profits were higher than last year's third quarter in all four global businesses and four out of five regions," he said.

In a statement, HSBC said its £2bn share buyback scheme that it announced in August was now 59% complete, and it expected to finish this by the end of this year, or in early 2017.