(Bloomberg) -- HSBC Holdings Plc announced a fresh multi-billion dollar stock buyback as it reported better-than-estimated earnings, days after unveiling a major overhaul of its businesses.

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Europe’s largest bank said Tuesday that it would repurchase up to $3 billion of shares on the back of a 9.9% gain in pretax profit from a year earlier to $8.48 billion. The results were driven by gains in divisions including its wealth arm, which benefited from higher private banking volumes in Asia, according to its statement.

The buyback follows last week’s unveiling of HSBC’s biggest revamp in at least a decade that would see the merger of its global commercial and investment banking units. The move also included a wider geographical overhaul that would make Hong Kong and the UK standalone units and fold Asia Pacific and the Middle East into an Eastern regional division.

“There was strong revenue growth and good performances in wealth and wholesale transaction banking,” Chief Executive Officer Georges Elhedery said in a statement, presiding over his first set of financial results since taking the helm at the British lender on Sept. 2.

The lender gained 243,000 customers in Hong Kong in the quarter, while overall fee income in wealth rose 32%. HSBC has targeted becoming the premier wealth bank in Asia, as it has divested other business across the world.

HSBC shares climbed 2.4% in Hong Kong afternoon trading.

HSBC has already handed $34.4 billion to shareholders in the past 18 months, much of it in the form of stock buybacks, which have become one of the bank’s preferred ways to distribute capital to its investors. Despite this, the stock has performed relatively modestly compared to other UK banks, such as Barclays Plc.

Since being promoted to the top job, Elhedery, the former chief financial officer, has been emphasizing cost controls, telling staff in his first town hall in Hong Kong last month that his focus would be on spending more wisely rather than less. With central banks around the world embarking on a rate-cutting cycle — something that will eat into lenders’ margins — the pressure is rising on HSBC to find ways to cut expenses.

HSBC, whose operating expenses increased slightly to $8.1 billion in the quarter, has already initiated a slew of measures to curb costs. It’s canceled some internal events, slowed hiring and put fresh limits on staff travel, with senior bankers forced to delay planned trips, Bloomberg News has reported.