Subprime crisis could still get worse: HSBC chief executive

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2008

HONG KONG (AFP) — The chief executive of Europe's biggest bank said in Hong Kong on Tuesday that the industry's difficulties with products linked to subprime mortgages may not be over.

"We aren't convinced yet that the worst is over," Michael Geoghegan, group chief executive of HSBC, told reporters after an informal shareholder meeting here.

Geoghegan said HSBC expected its write-downs related to subprime mortgages to decrease quarter-by-quarter, but it could not rule out further problems.

HSBC wrote down 3.2 billion US dollars in the first quarter, a reduction from the 4.6 billion dollars that was written off in the fourth quarter of 2007.

HSBC was one of the first banks to warn of the problems among products linked to the high-risk US mortgage...