HSBC brand appreciates

The value of the brand "HSBC" has been put at $5 billion and currently ranks as the 33rd most valuable brand in the world, according to the recently published Interbrand league table of the world's leading and most valuable brands.

The Best Global Brands table is published annually in the Business Week magazine. The 2004 table places HSBC as the most valuable brand in the United Kingdom.

"HSBC has risen four places from 37th to 33rd since last year's table was published by Interbrand. What is particularly satisfying is that the value of the HSBC brand has risen by 15 per cent to hit the US$5 billion mark in the past year. This was one of the largest increases of any of the top 40 brands," said Martin Wilkins, chief operating officer at HSBC Bank Malta plc.

Interbrand calculates brand value as the net present value of the earnings that the brand is expected to generate and secure in the future for the time frame from July 1, 2003 to June 30, 2004. The 100 most valuable global brands were selected according to two criteria: First, the brands had to be global, generating significant earnings in the main global markets. Second, there had to be sufficient marketing and financial data publicly available for preparing a reasonable valuation.