London/Hong Kong — HSBC Holdings is the latest global bank to take hits from the collapses of Steinhoff International Holdings and Carillion, a person familiar with the matter said. Europe’s largest bank said loan-impairment charges were about $188m higher in the fourth quarter than a year earlier, "largely driven by two individual corporate exposures in Europe", according to a filing on Tuesday. The two companies in question were Steinhoff — the South African retailer engulfed in an accounting scandal, which owns businesses in Britain — and Carillion, the UK construction company that imploded earlier this year, said the person, who asked not to be identified speaking about confidential matters. Without the two loans going bad, impairments would have dropped in the quarter, according to the filing. The losses contributed to HSBC missing its estimated profit in Stuart Gulliver’s final earnings report as CEO. Steinhoff announced on December 5 that it had uncovered accounting irregular...
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