ML-Implode News - Standard Chartered Drops After First Annual Loss Since 1989

``The Asia-focused lender reported a pretax loss of $1.5 billion in 2015, down from profit of $4.2 billion a year earlier, as revenue missed estimates and loan impairments almost doubled to the highest in the bank's history. The company wrote down the value of its business in Thailand, said it was reviewing its operations in Indonesia, further cut its commodity exposure and eliminated all executives' bonuses.
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Winters, 54, is attempting to unwind the damage caused by predecessor Peter Sands' revenue-led expansion across emerging markets, which left the bank riddled with bad loans when the commodity market crashed and growth stalled from China to India. The company set a target of a 10 percent return on equity by 2020, up from negative 0.4 percent in 2015.
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The bank took a $1.8 billion restructuring charge, part of the $3 billion in such charges it flagged in November. That included a writedown of about $1 billion of a portfolio it's deemed too risky and seeking to sell in order to shed $20 billion of risk-weighted assets. Standard Chartered will "continue to take necessary, sometimes painful steps to improve returns," the company said in a presentation to investors.
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While the bank didn't call out any major fines in its results, it might have to pay U.S. authorities a further $2 billion to settle regulatory probes into sanctions violations, according to Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd. analyst Chirantan Barua.

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Standard Chartered Drops After First Annual Loss Since 1989