Standard Chartered bond buyback to lift profit

LONDON (Reuters) - Asia-focussed bank Standard Chartered (STAN.L) said on Thursday its second half profits will receive a boost after it bought back some of its own bonds at a discount of 37.5 percent to their $1.024 billion (697.9 million pounds) par value.

A Standard Chartered spokesman said the buyback will boost its second half pretax profit by $384.3 million, representing the difference between the original value of the bonds and what the bank paid to repurchase them.

However, the one-off gain will not be reflected in the company's core earnings per share number, which excludes exceptional items.

Standard Chartered shares were down 5.6 percent at 720.5 pence at 2:38 p.m., underperforming the FTSE 100, which was 0.9 percent lower.

(Reporting by Myles Neligan; Editing by Paul Hoskins)