HSBC Holdings plc (HSBC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thanks, everyone, for joining. We'll kick off the session. So delighted to be joined here with Pam Kaur, HSBC Group's CFO. [Technical Difficulty] Okay. Cool. All right. So apologies for that disturbance and sorry for that. I think let's proceed anyway and fingers crossed this kind of results itself.

Okay. It's been a year since George took over as CEO, almost a year since you were appointed. Can you reflect on what's been done and what there is to do from here?

Thanks, Aman. We've made a strong start in terms of our priorities, so fundamentally to refocus the business and to invest for growth. And the 4 key businesses that we have elevated in our franchise, Hong Kong, U.K., Wealth and CIB are all progressing well. They've had good above mid-teens RoTE delivered and there has been revenue growth. But just as a context, if I think about what our predecessors had to face, they were in a world where we had regulatory headwinds, including the DPA, they were also trying to look at our legacy portfolio and to reduce it. The interest rates were near 0. And there was a structural cost base, which was from our legacy local bank footprint that was an overhang. Now as we got into it from this time, right from the start, we wanted to simplify the organization. We wanted to make sure that we take out the duplicate costs as well as in refocusing the business, reduce the footprint in terms of exits of nonstrategic subscale, low-return businesses. And with that in mind, we have progressed and are now in a really good position that the investments we are making in the 4 priority areas can really be meaningful to drive growth. As part of that, we are also looking at how we drive the overall culture of the organization under this new structure, and that is going to be a very important underpinning as we continue to deliver.

Interested in the kind of time line of the kind of new strategic plan that's been put in place, how quickly do you envisage the kind of benefits -- realizing the benefits of the strategic plan?

So you've got $2 billion, $1.5 billion numbers. It's always interesting when you've got 2 exactly same size numbers to deal with. But the first $1.5 billion, which is the cost saves from simplification, which will be delivered by the end of next year. We are already ahead of target. And we called out at midyear that by the end of this year, we will not take $300 million as we first announced, but indeed $400 million down to the bottom line. And we do that under Project Cedar, so that's progressing really well. We have seen some of the exit restructuring costs already come into Q2, but the benefits accelerate as you go into '26. Now in terms of the other $1.5 billion, we have strong momentum in terms of the deals we have announced. We've announced 7 at half year, but we also have.... [Technical Difficulty]

Okay. I think that is a positive resolution. I think that's -- I think -- yes, exactly. Okay. All right. Well, I obviously apologize for the interruption...

So I was talking about the second $1.5 billion, so both in terms of the strong pipeline as well as the deals that we have already announced. And we have looked at obviously countries. We looked at market participation, and we have looked at individual business areas. Now some of these are very quick to do and the benefits are quick to realize like we had with the Investment Bank and exit of M&A and ECM in U.K., Europe and the U.S. While the others, the country deals, they take longer and their benefits will come further down. But we feel that the weight of those benefits coming through will progressively increase through '26 and into '27.

Taking a step back then. I'm interested in your assessment of growth. I mean there's a lot going on across your footprint, divergent growth trends, complex geopolitics. Obviously, we're navigating a volatile trade policy backdrop as well. What's your kind of broad-based characterization of your operating environment?

So by the way, just as a starting point, we are managing the bank to a mid-teens RoTE. We printed 18% ROTE at half year. All four businesses are growing at mid-teens RoTE or better, and all four are growing. But just unbundling, if you look in terms of tariffs and trade, we are the #1 trade bank. In this second quarter year-on-year, our trade fees have grown 4%. Trade balances are up. We are in a unique position to engage with our customers who are all facing a fundamentally different world. Having said that, trade is a small contributor only to our overall revenues. The real driver for revenues in our wholesale transaction banking is payments and FX, and that is benefiting from strong customer flows. Some of it obviously is related to the market volatility, like for FX. But overall, we see that growth and that momentum. If you look at Hong Kong, we've had a second quarter with all its challenges. We've had HIBOR at a very low level. We've had ECLs that are heightened. Despite that, we have a 35% RoTE. Fundamentally in Hong Kong, yes, asset growth has been muted, but deposits have grown 9%. Then if I look at the wealth business, the wealth business has a double-digit growth trajectory. Wealth fees have grown more than 20%. We are well engaged in terms of the insurance business, both in terms of Hong Kong as well as the balances growing globally. So all in all, as a consequence of our focused growth objectives as well as the structural benefit of some of the geographies that we are in. We are in a very strong capital generation capacity and feel very comfortable as a consequence in terms of our distributions and our targets to manage the bank to mid-teens RoTE or better.

Banking NII, you reiterated your full year '25 guidance at circa $42 billion with H1 results. I mean you alluded to the step-off in HIBOR at the time of results. It was down some 300 basis points Q-on-Q. Thankfully, it's kind of rebounded somewhat since pretty significantly. Interested in the confidence that sits behind that guidance at this level.

So at half year, we are pretty comfortable because, of course, there was a headwind from HIBOR. And we also called out that if it continued to be at the 1%, we would have that $100 million per month headwind for the rest of the year. We had the benefit, obviously, of a weaker dollar. Now with HIBOR having normalized above 3%, of course, we are even more comfortable. So from a banking NII perspective, it's all in a good space. We have our structural hedge, which has been doubled over the last 3 years, sitting at $578 billion. We have reinvestments of the hedge coming sort of $25 billion per quarter, and that gives us an additional tailwind from reinvestment of a 1% higher yield. So overall, from a banking NII, very comfortable, underpinned by a very strong deposit growth of 5%, $83 billion year-on-year from a group perspective.

Yes. I wanted to build on that actually. I mean, money flows into your business, they're remarkable, right? I think there's -- I think, $83 billion or 5% deposit growth over the last 12 months. And then you've also got additionally $75 billion of net new invested assets that are coming through into the wealth business. Obviously, Asia, in particular, Hong Kong is the kind of key focal point here. But presumably, this gives you a level of confidence in the earnings -- a pretty significant confidence in the earnings outlook. Is that right?

We are very comfortable with our earnings outlook. From a deposit perspective, that is our crown jewel. We have high-quality, sticky deposits. We never have to overpay for our deposits. We maintain our share and grow. And it's not just in Hong Kong and U.K., it's in every major currency as well as in every country that we operate where we have a deposit surplus. Now in terms of the other income flows, yes, from a net new invested assets, we have clearly invested from a wealth proposition. A key driver of that is transactional activity in Hong Kong. There is also new customer inflows. We're seeing 100,000 new customer inflows coming every month. They're not all wealth customers, but they give a very good starting point to build them into wealth customers as time progresses. In addition to that, there is a good momentum on wholesale transaction banking. So overall, it is a good outlook for a revenue generation in all 4 pockets of the business that we are in and revenue generation, which is coming from quality annuity-like earnings rather than just event earnings.

One area, I guess, that you've been running below target is loan growth. You've got an aspiration to grow the balance sheet at a mid-single-digit growth rate. You've been impacted by deleveraging in places like Hong Kong. I'm interested in when you -- when is it realistic to think you might actually realize that level of target loan growth?

You're absolutely right. Loan growth is low because customers are not making those capital expenditure decisions. We have a strong capital base. We have the risk appetite. We have lines available to our customers. Utilizations are low. Having said that, there are pockets of the business where we are seeing some early growth. So in our U.K. Commercial Banking, there has been growth in very specific sectors that we have targeted. And they tend to be the new energy sectors. It tends to be biotech, pharma, IT sectors as opposed to real estate and other areas. So we are leveraging both our understanding of the sectors through obviously our Innovation Bank, SVB as well and in a targeted way, making sure that we can be there to respond to our customers as and when they need us. From a Hong Kong perspective, 2 things have happened. There has been a little bit of growth outside real estate, but we've also seen some of our very large developers, which are part of our unsecured portfolio, they have been deleveraging. And as a consequence, overall, Hong Kong is muted. And across the world, that growth is muted. I think 2 factors will be really important to see asset growth again pick up. One will be if the world is in a more stable environment, both from a interest rate trajectory, but also in terms of macroeconomic uncertainties. And as that comes through, hopefully, through next year, we can get more close to our asset growth targets. But having said all of that, the banking NII's main driver is the deposit franchise.

Yes, exactly. Okay. So I might take this as an opportunity to ask some of the ARS questions [Operator Instructions] Okay. What would cause you to become more positive on HSBC shares? One, better NII, better fees, better cost control, asset quality, capital return, trade policy certainty or easing in geopolitical tensions. I mean that last one feels a distant prosper really isn't it?

That's a question that always comes.

Yes, I know, yes.

Okay. That's it.

So yes, easing in geopolitical tensions, greater capital returns, better NII's, pretty broad distribution of responses there, to be honest with you. Let's move to the second ARS, please. What you...

[ We talked about the ] banking NII, geopolitics will be what it is. And the third one was...

Capital returns.

Capital returns, yes. Okay.

Second ARS. So what are you most concerned about at HSBC, weaker earnings, weaker capital, distributions, reg risk, political risk, M&A risk -- political risks and then weaker earnings. Yes, political risks.

So I just want to say on political risk. We have lived in a world where you have these geopolitical tensions at different times of different degrees. We have strong franchises, which each in their own right are performing well and giving high-quality earnings and we engage with our customers as and when they need us rather than get caught in the politics. And even in a time like tariffs, our engagement with our customers has been very important in supporting both the economies of the countries we operate in and our customers.

Let's do the third ARS, please. How do you expect HSBC's RoTE to develop over the next couple of years? So for example, 27% relative to this year's. Significantly higher, modestly higher, in line, modestly lower, significantly lower? Modestly higher? Okay. I mean you're already operating well above your mid-teens target in H1. So let's say people are right...

Hope they're right and we continue to stay optimistic.

Turning back to the business then. So Wealth Management, you alluded to it earlier on that key driver of the business. You saw revenue growth of 22% in Q2, driven primarily by Asia and in particular, Hong Kong, which is, as we alluded to, is benefiting from very strong inflows at the moment. But you're also targeting market share gains, increased investment. I'm interested in how sustainable this level of revenue growth is? And can you talk to the differing contributions from the market backdrop and the share gains that you're looking to execute on?

I think we need to sort of dial back a bit to see where do we have really a preeminent position as a competitive strength. So whether it's in Asia or the Middle East. We are one of the largest international banks. We are well respected. We have an iconic brand, whether it's Hong Kong, whether it's India, whether it's the UAE, Singapore, Mainland China. In all those areas, of course, there is strong competition. So we are very much focused in terms of the hiring of RMs in strengthening our product proposition, continuing to deliver good customer service as well as we've opened 16 new wealth centers. In addition to that, we have a strong home market in the U.K., where we're just trying to convert the customers who are already with us in terms of their deposits to be able to do more with our customers in terms of their wealth needs. And therefore, we have targets which are in the U.K. as well to make up the top 5 wealth provider to increase our premier customer base, double it up from $1 million to $2 million, have $100 billion in net new invested assets. So we have a focused but very targeted approach in all these markets. So what is happening in some of the high-growth markets is there is a growth in the middle class. And our sweet spot is really working with customers whose assets under management is sort of $100,000 to $2 million. What we need to do there is increase the RM coverage, make sure that the product proposition is on target, the customer journeys are simple, and we have the right technology enablement for that. That has helped us both in terms of getting net new customers like in a situation like in Hong Kong, and I'll talk a little bit about it, but also do more with our existing customers. If I look at Hong Kong, yes, we have benefited from strong transactional activity in Hong Kong and the Southbound Connect, which caused a headwind from a HIBOR perspective is actually a tailwind in terms of the wealth proposition. And if you look at the flow of new customers, having 100,000 new customers every month in Hong Kong, who are not wealth customers because they come with a small savings to begin with, but who could, over time, and we monitor it very closely, become wealth customers, that gives us the confidence that we will continue to generate double-digit growth in the wealth proposition.

You alluded to relationship managers. Are you accelerating hiring of RM...

Absolutely. We are accelerating hiring relationship managers in Hong Kong, in the U.K., in Singapore and in UAE. And in the other markets, we are ensuring that we continue to drive the business, which we bought from Citi, which was in Mainland China, which is the Citigold space in terms of driving our wealth proposition.

Perfect. I wanted to turn to one of your other major businesses, CIB, many moving parts there when I think about it, you've got underlying growth, targeted investments, but you've also got an overhang from tariffs, which at face value feels like a kind of complex impact on the business, maybe a headwind for trade, but volatility boosting global FX. I think I struggle sometimes to get a clean read on what to think about for this business going forward. So I'm interested in how do you think about the outlook for CIB from here? And if I can ask as part of that, have you seen any meaningful impact on customer behavior from tariffs so far?

So let me start with tariffs, though they are probably the smallest contributor overall in CIB's transaction banking. From a tariff perspective, customers are engaged with us to understand how they can evolve their business models. They are not making decisions as such in terms of capital expenditure and to change their business models. There have been some opportunities where the customers have said like in -- for the U.S. importers that they need more operating capital to pay up the upfront tariff duties. So in that, we've obviously created the trade pay product, and that's going well. So that customer level engagement is very active. But so far, we do not see stress on that customer base either individually or at a sector level. And how we look at that is in terms of the customer behavior, the balances they hold with us are pretty stable and the drawdowns they are having on the approved lines have not increased like they had increased during the COVID period. So overall, that they're managing through that well. If I look sort of beyond the tariffs business, as I said earlier, the wholesale transaction banking, payments and FX, we have invested in this business as well as trade. We have had multiyear programs to invest in these businesses, and they are actually reaping the benefits. So now when we have increased volumes in payments in FX, it's gone pretty smoothly. In addition, in Security Services, as our customers want to add more banks for some of the products that they want to put for custody, they absolutely are leaning on to us, and we are winning new mandates. And with those new mandates, we see there's growth for the Security Services business as well, particularly in Asia. And if I go beyond the real driver for the CIB is also going to be that we do more balance sheet velocity and significant risk transfer. This is an area where we have been slower in the past. We've always had a strong balance sheet and the capital position. So we haven't done as much as some of our peer banks. And with that, we are hopeful that as growth opportunities on the asset side there, doesn't actually increase our RWAs, and that will indeed then have a benefit and a tailwind for our overall RoTE.

Just a potential follow-up on the tariffs point then. You laid out a kind of low single-digit percentage hit to revenues from a plausible downside tariff scenario in April, but obviously, a lot shifted on the policy front since then. Is that still the right way to think about a potential downside?

So we continue doing lots of downside scenarios. We refresh them at every quarter. So overall, absolutely the low single-digit impact and the direct impact of tariffs is unchanged. In addition, what we go and look at is that from a second order, whether you're a trade bank or not, what will be the impact from an interest rate and a GDP perspective. And in those sort of downside scenarios, it obviously is going to be a little higher. So that's how we work it through.

Okay. Fair enough. Yes, I wanted to ask about asset quality then just shifting it. You increased your full year '25 ECL guidance with 2Q results to circa 40 bps. Previously, you were targeting 30 to 40 driven primarily by Hong Kong commercial real estate, where conditions have been challenged for much of this year. Interested in your assessment of the risks from here and in particular, whether you see scope for further material provisions from here or not?

So firstly, when we look at our provisions in our overall guidance for circa 40 basis points, we obviously look at the outlook for the rest of the year, and that's how the guidance is built. We build that in and Hong Kong CRE is a clear component of that. But if I look at overall on real estate, the residential real estate in Hong Kong has now come into a much better position compared to where it was 18 months ago, both in terms of prices being firm, rentals holding and volume of activity in terms of the residential real estate. So we see no issues from a residential real estate perspective. And this is as a continuation of some of the measures that the government had taken 18 months ago, and we are now seeing the benefits of those measures play out. Now from a commercial real estate, there are some structural issues. There's an oversupply in terms of office space. The government is taking measures now to reduce that, but it will take time for that to really work its way through the system. I would say, the next sort of 12 to 15 months through most of '26. But there is a distinction between that office supply, where it is, the quality of the office space. So therefore, some of the larger developers who have sort of prime properties and diversified cash flows, they have lesser pressure compared to what you say, the smaller or the midsized developers. That's where the real pressure is. The other element is with regard to retail and shopping malls. But some of those consumer behavior patterns have changed as a consequence of this pressure on retail and shopping mall properties. Now just in the last few months, we've seen a little bit of uptick, but I'm not going to make a big conclusion based on a few earlier green shoots in the last few months. And it goes 2 ways. If you have people in Hong Kong who can then go and do their shopping cheaper by going to Shenzhen, they go across the border. But then as you have all this flow of customers who are coming through to open accounts and participate in overall the opportunities in products, et cetera, available in Hong Kong, they also shop in Hong Kong. They go to restaurants, they go to bars. And so that kind of creates a little bit of economic activity. Now having said all that, from our perspective, the $32 billion that we have in terms of our overall exposure that we call it [ maybe ] 44% of it is unsecured with the large developers, 95% investment grade. So there's a pretty comfortable space. The stress really comes through the secured portfolio. And within that secured portfolio, the impaired portfolio increased by $600 million to $5.1 billion. There are ECL allowances of $500 million against it. And the subset of that, which we're most focused on is of that $5.1 billion is the $1.4 billion where LTVs are greater than 70%. So that's the sort of overall picture of how we look at it, and that's all factored in as part of the ECL guidance.

Okay. Thank you very much for that. So maybe let's return to the ARS questions, please. So how do you see potential risk to HSBC's capital and dividends from here? One, upside on better earnings; two, upside on lower capital requirements; three, downside risk on weaker earnings; four, downside risk on higher capital requirements; five, downside risk on acquisitions. Okay. That's a pretty positive response there. Generally speaking, 2/3 of people see upside risk to your kind of capital returns outlook, the downside risk on weaker earnings. Okay, fine. Can we move to #5, please? So how would you view significant acquisitions for the group? Right. So something I guess [indiscernible] negative. I mean, generally -- it seems like generally speaking, people would prefer the capital back, right? You've got 24% of people are marginally positive. Everyone else would either view it negatively or full return prefer the -- I mean, can I ask you about the appetite for M&A or the kind of appetite for HSBC to...

Well, I think it's fair to say that in the past, historically, and I'm going back many years, perhaps the discipline and the focus on strategy on acquisitions was not as much as it should have been. So for us, acquisitions is a very high hurdle rate to cross. And that really means, firstly, it has to be absolutely on strategy. It also has to be in areas where we are got scale. We have competitive strength, and we can drive operating leverage and superior earnings. And more importantly, we are doing well enough on organic growth, whether it comes into our RoTE targets, whether it's in terms of driving performance. So we don't want to do acquisitions that we don't either quite understand or will be a distraction. So that, to me, is really important and they have to be at the right value and price.

Let's do the final ARS question, please. Where would you like to see HSBC -- most like to see HSBC invest for growth? Wealth Management, wholesale transaction banking, loan growth across the footprint for inorganic. Wealth Management and a return to loan growth. But yes, primarily Wealth Management.

Yes. And Wealth Management is something we are very much focused on across all our geographies. And it's really important to say when people go for wealth, management and acquiring customers, we have a natural home advantage because we have those customers already with their deposits with us. They trust us. They believe in us. Also, we have a very strong footprint in terms of commercial banking in many geographies. So most banks will have a commercial banking footprint in their home markets. But we go in many geographies, which are high-growth geographies, not just doing multinationals and large corporates, but we go in terms of mid-market as well. So as those businesses grow and those entrepreneurs wealth grows, we have worked with them. We have engaged with them. We have supported them. They are loyal to us. So that's where we get a lot of our private bank and wealth customer base. So both from the deposit base from the 100,000 AUMs to 2 million and at the top end as they grow, that continue. And that is our very critical competitive strength compared to other sort of pure-play private banks, and these are in high-growth areas. And we are -- what they're doing differently, to be fair to what we've done before, we know our focus areas, and we want to invest there meaningfully. We don't want to dissipate our investment in a lot of different areas and then not make a real difference where it matters. That's the big difference. I would say in wholesale transaction banking, it is really important for us to maintain our position as a top 1, 2 or 3 player and that's what we are doing in terms of multiyear programs so that investment for growth is not that something we sort of have to relitigate every year, but there are longer programs that we are working through. And underpinning all of this, we have taken costs out to drive operating leverage, but we will continue to drive streamlining benefits and higher productivity by looking at areas where we can drive productivity through AI. So every time we want to grow, we won't say we want to increase headcount so much in an offshore low-cost center. But actually, we don't need to grow it one for one because we have some AI benefits, and we have some good cases on that, too.

Opening the floor if anyone's got any questions, please feel free to ask. I'll give you guys a minute to think. I wanted to ask around, I guess, around capital. You're highly generative at the moment, particularly during a period of subdued loan growth. And together with the strong capital position, which has been boosted by disposals, you've been executing quite strongly on distributions, including a rolling series of buybacks that are roughly $1 billion kind of per month run rate. Looking forward, how should we think about the sustainability of this level of capital return, particularly if and when loan growth recovers?

Okay. So firstly, we don't give a target for share buybacks. We do share buybacks, and we have done at a $3 billion per quarter, but that's -- because that's from an execution of share buybacks, that's the sort of maximum we can do and we have done. If I look at the capital overall, we operate within a 14% to 14.5% CET1. So it's not one number. It's a range. We are capital generators. We expect to be capital generators given our RoTE targets. And we have a very clear dividend payout of 50%. And that dividend payout, we feel is right, and we will continue with. For the residual, obviously, the first point is balance sheet growth, and we would love to have balance sheet growth, and we are ready available with very liquid strong balance sheets across the board. But we've said that's going to be probably not subdued and muted, but at best kind of mid-single digit. The next comes is in terms of acquisition. And with a high hurdle rate, we will be looking at opportunities, but only if they fall bang on our strategy. And then the share buyback is a residual. So it's a really very simple math and exercise, which we do on a quarterly basis. We don't have any sort of view that if the price book to value is x, then what should the share buyback be? We are looking at share buyback as a preferred method, but only when we look through all this. And actually, we would like to grow both organically and if there's an opportunity for an on-strategy acquisition with the right disciplines.

One final chance to ask questions if anyone in the room if you'd like to.

Just very quickly I want to ask on RM hiring. Where are you hiring [indiscernible] or is it already also organic kind of growth [indiscernible] talent and how easy it is to do that relative to...

So thank you. Really good question. So first, we have to look at what segment of the wealth we are referring to. So when you look at the lower end of the wealth business, we are very much hiring from the market, but these are also RMs who we are then training internally in terms of the product proposition because it's not so much as they are gathering customers new. We have those customers already. They are doing that cross-sell and providing the wealth proposition to those customers. So that's very much driven by our own training programs that we have, and we have that critical mass of existing RMs who are upgrading or the new that we are hiring. Clearly, in terms of the private bank business, we are looking at both hiring from the markets where they have those strong customer engagement, but also to build on our existing. Overall, we tend to do more in terms of our existing customer base, whether it comes through the wealth route or indeed the corporate route because we have this sort of multi-business proposition in all our large markets. We don't rely on RMs to bring in customers. We have our customers. We rely on RMs to be able to meet the wealth needs of those customers in a safe, stable, secure manner. So it's very different when you say classically, people say, can I get somebody's RMs and then bring their business in, in terms of customers. We have those customers. These customers already across through our business areas have their deposits with us. They trust us. They don't need to be introduced to us.

I'm going to ask one very, very final question. This will be to close the session out. But just around deregulation, it's just a big theme at the conference so far. I guess there's a sense of optimism around deregulation and the impact on financial services in the U.S. I guess in the U.K., the U.K. also want to drive to deregulate -- yourself as a firm, you've been kind of vocal proponents of easing capital requirements, easing requirements, including areas like ring-fencing. I was just interested if there's any particular areas that you're optimistic around.

I'll start with a positive. So I've been in banking for 35 years. And this year was the first time where the U.K. regulators have actually put growth as part of their objectives, both the FCA and the PRA. So I've seen that in other markets, particularly Hong Kong, Singapore, where they're very growth oriented. So that's a good start. Having said that, as a backdrop, when ring-fencing was done, we created a very large ring-fenced bank. But the non-ring-fenced bank, we actually reduced our balance sheet size to meet the regulations as they were then. So from our perspective, regulation has to be proportionate. Some of the engagement that has been happening on Basel III and its implementation, both time line as well as the qualitative implementation gives me optimism for the future. But clearly, what's happening in the U.S. at the moment, the gap between the U.S. pro-growth agenda and U.K. and then Europe, I look at it really in that order, has to catch up. and we'll have to just see how that progresses. So that from an investment perspective, as a global bank for ourselves, U.K. continues and remains attractive, but also for our customers who have choices on where they want to invest, U.K. doesn't lose a competitive edge. And the next sort of 12 months, 12 to 18 months will be critical to really have those right moves. And businesses want predictable, sustainable environments to operate in. They don't want sort of chop and change and windfalls and taxes or whatever because what's the windfall today versus tomorrow, they don't -- they can't really predict. So predictability is a very important cornerstone that U.K. needs to follow through on. And that's one of the reasons why Hong Kong does well because it's a very predictable growth-oriented market environment with a very viable economy and a very large Mainland China flow coming through it.

Okay. Perfect. With that, we'll bring the session to a close. Thanks, everyone. Thank you very much, Pam.

Thank you.