The business diversification of HSBC Holdings plc is enabling it to deliver earnings despite the huge hit it’s taking in the US mortgage business, says Fitch Ratings.

HSBC announced today that underlying pre-tax profits were flat at US$23 billion in 2007, despite US$17 billion of loan impairment charges largely in HSBC Finance and US$2 billion of other writedowns and fair value adjustments mainly due to structured credit exposures. Earnings were inflated, however, by US$3 billion of fair value ‘gains’ on its own debt, it added.

The rating agency says that HBBC’s 2007 results demonstrate the benefits of a diversified business and a liquid, well capitalized balance sheet, which are helping the group to offset the significant problems in its U.S. subsidiary, HSBC Finance.

“For HSBC to achieve stable underlying earnings, despite the collapse in earnings in its U.S. consumer finance business is a creditable result,” said James Longsdon, managing director in Fitch’s financial institutions group in London. “HSBC’s diversified operations and conservatively funded balance sheet are notable strengths in current markets and help underpin its ratings.”

Fitch said that HSBC has traditionally been a deposit-focused group, and funding and liquidity are major strengths of the group and its main banking subsidiaries. Although funding and liquidity are not freely fungible around the group and it is the stressed US consumer finance businesses of HSBC Finance that are most reliant on the wholesale markets for funding, a group net customer loans/customer deposits ratio of 90% at end-2007 is a competitive strength in such tight credit markets. HSBC is also well capitalized and is less aggressive in its capital management than many other large banking groups.

Given its exposure to the troubled US sub-prime market via HSBC Finance, positive momentum for HSBC’s ratings is unlikely in the near-to-medium-term, Fitch said. Negative rating actions could arise if deterioration in HSBC Finance’s earnings and asset quality begins to overwhelm the positive trends in HSBC’s other businesses, particularly if it adversely affects the group’s strong capital and/or liquidity position. Fitch added that further capital injections could be necessary for the company to maintain target capitalization ratios.