Company: HBCYF
Filing Date: 2025-02-19
Form Type: 6-K
Source: 0001654954-25-001665
Chunk: 9

Company: HSBC HOLDINGS PLC
Filing Date: 2025-02-19
Form: 6-K
Chunk 9
---
 directly linked to mainland China.

Elsewhere in Asia, changing supply chains and resilient local demand helped to drive growth in a number of markets, including India. Over the longer term, the demographic dividend will benefit countries like India and markets across South and Southeast Asia.

As this happens, we also continue to see great potential in the fast-growing corridor between Asia and the Middle East, where strong demographics combine with large scale capital spending on infrastructure and further diversification, which are set to continue.

In Europe, with inflation pressures easing and interest rates on a downward trajectory, consumer spending should rise. As a result, we expect the Eurozone to expand this year. Meanwhile, the new UK government is pursuing a pro-growth agenda, which we fully support.

#### Our people
I want to end by expressing the Board's immense appreciation and gratitude to all our colleagues for driving our Group forward.

All that we delivered in 2024 was only made possible by their sustained efforts, energies, and execution focus. They are the lifeblood of the HSBC Group, serving our customers and creating value for shareholders.

Sir Mark E Tucker

Group Chairman

19 February 2025

Group CEO's shareholder letter

#### Dear fellow shareholders,
The opportunity to lead HSBC is a privilege. Even more so as we celebrate our 160th anniversary. Like each of my predecessors, I see my responsibility as delivering sustainable strategic growth for our shareholders. This begins by putting our customers at the centre of everything we do. Our financial strength, international network, heritage, and brand mean we build upon firm foundations.

We look to the future with confidence.

We begin from a position of strength, which is reinforced by our 2024 performance. During the year, we delivered a return on average tangible equity ('RoTE') of 14.6%. This includes several notable items, in particular related to strategic disposals. Excluding these, our RoTE was 16.0%, achieving our 'mid-teens' target. Our common equity tier 1 ('CET1') capital ratio was 14.9%, reflecting our long-standing financial strength. With our continued focus on cost discipline, we managed cost growth on our target basis of around 5%, which was in line with our targeted cost growth. This strong performance enabled us to announce $26.9 billion in returns to our shareholders through dividends and share buy-backs, which we expect to remain central to our strategy.

#### Simple, more agile, focused
**The world in which we operate is changing quickly