Share count
17.4Bpeak FY2021
← All companies ← HSAI Manual HSHP → ← HOPE Banks HTB →
HSBC, HSBC Holdings plc.
Banks financial
A balance-sheet business, read on book value, net interest margin and credit losses rather than an earnings multiple.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$52.4B
+6.9% YoY · 4% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · FY2025, with 5-yr average
Revenue $52.4B 5-yr avg $48.3B
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- Net interest margin, loan losses, and book value. A lender is read on the quality of its balance sheet, not an earnings multiple, and the worst year of credit losses matters more than the best. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on equity has sat below the cost of equity (median 7%, above 12% in only 2 of 10 years). The cycle and the loan book decide this one; weigh the recession years in the record, not the average, and read the 10-K.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Revenue
$52.4Blow FY2020
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 20-F · source on SEC EDGAR →
Is it a good business?
- Return on equity 12%AdequateNet income $23.1B ÷ equity $198.2BIndustry peers: median 10%
What this means
The bank's north star, what it earns on shareholders' capital. Cost of equity is roughly 10%, so a return durably above that builds value and below it destroys it. One year is noisy; the durability across a full credit cycle is what counts.
- ModestNet income ÷ (equity − goodwill $0 − intangibles $0)Industry peers: median 13%
What this means
The cleaner return, stripping out the goodwill paid for past acquisitions. This is the number a buyer of the whole bank actually earns on the hard capital.
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median 63%
What this means
Noninterest expense or revenue missing.
Is it sound?
- Capital (equity / assets) 6.1%ModestEquity $198.2B ÷ assets $3.23T
What this means
A plain-English leverage read: how much of the balance sheet is the owners' own money. This is a rough proxy; the regulatory figure is the CET1 ratio, which is risk-weighted and reported in the filing. The point is the same, how much loss the bank can absorb before depositors are at risk.
- Deposit funding 55%Mostly deposit-fundedDeposits $1.79T ÷ assets $3.23T
What this means
Low-cost, sticky deposits are a bank's real moat, the cheap raw material it lends out at a spread. A bank funded mostly by deposits earns more durably than one that rents its money in the wholesale market.
- Credit cost —Not enough data
What this means
Provision or net interest income missing.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor
The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product.
AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Peers, Banks
The same industry, side by side on the bank lens. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | ROE | ROTCE | Efficiency | NII / assets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BACBank of America Corp. | $113.1B | 10% | 13% | 64% | 1.8% |
| CCitigroup Inc. | $85.2B | 7% | 8% | 62% | 2.3% |
| WFCWells Fargo & Co. | $83.7B | 11% | 13% | 67% | 2.5% |
| COFCapital One Financial Corporation | $53.4B | 8% | 12% | 54% | 6.0% |
| USBU.S. Bancorp | $28.7B | 12% | 17% | 59% | 2.5% |
| TFCTruist Financial Corporation | $20.3B | 8% | 11% | 63% | 2.7% |
| BKTHE Bank of NEW York Mellon Corporation | $20.1B | 10% | 20% | 69% | 0.9% |
| HSBCHSBC Holdings plc. | $52.4B | 7% | 7% | — | 1.1% |
| Group median | — | 9% | 12% | — | 2.4% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
price / tangible bookEnter the US price, in dollars: the NYSE/Nasdaq quote you hold. Per the filing's own cover, “American Depositary Shares, each representing 5 Ordinary”; HSBC Holdings plc. reports in USD, so every figure in this tool is stated per ADS so your dollar quote reconciles exactly. The record tables elsewhere on this page remain as filed.
A bank is worth a multiple of its tangible book value, and the multiple it deserves is set by the return it earns on that book. Type today’s price; we show what you would be paying against what HSBC Holdings plc.’s record justifies.
$
The assumptions
Tangible book / share, delivered3%/yr’20→’25
The justified multiple is (return on tangible equity − growth) ÷ (cost of equity − growth). A bank earning exactly its cost of equity is worth about one times tangible book; the premium above that prices each point of durable excess return. A higher cost of equity lowers the justified multiple for a bank.
Enter a price above to run it.
Price / tangible book—
Justified by the return—
Normalized return on tangible equity7%
Price / book—
Earnings yield—
P/E (3-yr avg ’23–’25)—
Graham’s price gate—
Graham applied the same standards to financial enterprises (Intelligent Investor ch.14): the 15× multiple cap on averaged earnings, and P/E times price-to-book at most 22.5. The gate marks the bargain-hunter’s floor, not a verdict.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Tangible book $198.2B on 3435M shares, a 7% normalized return on it. The dials set the multiple such a return would justify; your price sets the multiple you are paying. It assumes the bank keeps earning that return; a credit cycle, a rate shock or a bad acquisition changes it, which is what the record and the 10-K are for.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "HSBC Holdings plc. (HSBC), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/HSBC, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← HSAI its page in the Manual HSHP →
Industry order: ← HOPE the Banks chapter HTB →