It is a measure of the severity of the crisis that HSBC executives talk of “signature financial strength” with a straight face. This is a bank that has just relieved shareholders of $17.8bn in Britain's biggest rights issue and lost $23bn in its US consumer finance arm in 2007 and 2008. It yesterday invited shareholders to celebrate the fact that HSBC Finance's first-quarter losses, excluding gains and losses on its own debt, were about 9 per cent better than the fourth quarter. (Never mind that this quarter's loss, of $3.4bn, was five times wider than that of the same period last year.)
滙豐(HSBC)高階主管面無表情地談論「標誌性的財務實力」，反映出此次危機的嚴重程度。這家銀行剛剛通過英國規模最大的配股發行，減輕了股東178億美元的負擔，而在2007年和2008年，其美國消費者金融子公司虧損230億美元。昨日，該公司邀集股東共同慶賀：滙豐金融第一季度不含自身債務損益的虧損環比收窄約9%。（別去想當季34億美元的虧損，是上年同期的6倍。）