European Corporate Roundup for Friday

Late on Thursday, HSBC Holdings PLC (HSBC) agreed to pay $101.5 million to resolve federal fraud charges stemming from the bank's misuse of confidential client information for its own profit, a practice commonly known as front-running.

In documents filed in Brooklyn federal court, HSBC admitted to using confidential information in two instances for its own profit.

In one March 2010 transaction, it converted approximately 5.3 billion pounds ($7.4 billion) to U.S. dollars for a client--identified in court documents only as a financial-services company--which resulted in a $38.4 million profit for HSBC. In a second transaction in December 2011 for Cairn Energy PLC, an oil-and-gas company based in Edinburgh, HSBC converted about $3.5 billion to British pounds that resulted in a roughly $8 million profit for the bank.

Shares dropped 0.4% in early trade.

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Remy Cointreau SA (RCO.FR) said Friday that its sales declined in the third quarter, partly due to the late timing of the 2018 Lunar New Year.

Sales decreased 1.7% to 317.7 million euros ($388.3 million) in the period from EUR323.3 million the same period last year. Analysts had expected quarterly sales of EUR317 million, according to a consensus estimate provided by FactSet.

Organic sales adjusted for currency effects rose 3.2% to EUR333.6 million in the period.

Shares dropped 1.3%.

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Ceconomy AG (CEC.XE) expects first-quarter earnings to decline, despite higher sales, the company said Friday.

The German retailer of electrical consumer goods said it expects earnings before interest and taxes of about 260 million euros ($317.8 million) in the first quarter of its financial year, down from EUR308 million a year earlier.

Sales are likely to increase 0.5% to EUR6.94 billion on a like-for-like basis, the company said.

Shares slumped more than 12% in early deals.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 19, 2018 04:55 ET (09:55 GMT)

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