HSBC first-half profit rises 16%, announces $1 billion buyback

HONG KONG/LONDON (Reuters) - HSBC <HSBA.L> reported on Monday its first-half pretax profit rose 15.9% and announced a further buyback of $1 billion (823 million pounds), defying some analysts' expectations it might pause its strategy of returning extra capital to investors.

Europe's biggest bank by assets reported a pretax profit for the first six months of $12.41 billion, up from $10.71 billion in the same period a year earlier.

(Reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee and Lawrence White; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Daniel Wallis)