Grupo Santander
Encyclopedia
The Santander Group is a banking group centered on Banco Santander, S.A., the largest bank in the Eurozone
Eurozone
The eurozone , officially called the euro area, is an economic and monetary union of seventeen European Union member states that have adopted the euro as their common currency and sole legal tender...
and one of the largest banks in the world in terms of market capitalisation. According to Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
Magazine Global 2000, it is the 13th largest public company in the world. It originated in Santander
Santander, Cantabria
The port city of Santander is the capital of the autonomous community and historical region of Cantabria situated on the north coast of Spain. Located east of Gijón and west of Bilbao, the city has a population of 183,446 .-History:...
, Cantabria
Cantabria
Cantabria is a Spanish historical region and autonomous community with Santander as its capital city. It is bordered on the east by the Basque Autonomous Community , on the south by Castile and León , on the west by the Principality of Asturias, and on the north by the Cantabrian Sea.Cantabria...
, Spain.
History
The 1999 merger of Banco Santander (founded in 1857) and Banco Central Hispano (founded in 1991) following the merger of Banco Central [est. 1919] and Banco Hispanoamericano [est. 1900], created Banco Santander Central Hispano, or BSCH.. This merger between Santander and Banco Central Hispano (BCH) was designed to be a "merger of equals" in which the top executives of the two pre-existing firms would share control of the merged entity. Soon after the merger former BCH executives accused Botin of trying to push his own agenda and threatened to take legal action against him. This post-merger squabbling was resolved when BCH executives Jose Amusategui and Angel Corcostegui agreed to accept severance payments, retire and relinquish control to Mr. Botin, at an expense to shareholders of €Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
164M.
The large termination payouts generated negative press and Botin was eventually brought to trial on criminal charges of "misappropriation of funds" and "irresponsible management." However, in April 2005 he was cleared of all charges. The verdict said the €164M retirement payments made to the two former executives were legal, "made as compensation for the services provided to the bank." In 2005 the anti-corruption division of the Spanish public prosecutor's office cleared Mr. Botin of all charges in a separate case in which he was accused of insider trading.
On 26 July 2004 Banco Santander Central Hispano announced the acquisition of Abbey National plc
Abbey (bank)
Abbey National plc was a UK-based bank and former building society, which latterly traded under the Abbey brand name. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of Grupo Santander of Spain in 2004, and was rebranded as Santander in January 2010, forming Santander UK along with the savings business of the...
. Following shareholders' approval at the EGMs of Abbey (95 per cent voted in favour, despite vocal opposition from most of those present) and Santander, the acquisition was formally approved by the courts and Abbey became part of Grupo Santander on 12 November 2004.
In June 2006, Banco Santander Central Hispano purchased almost 20% of Sovereign Bank
Sovereign Bank
Sovereign Bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Spanish Grupo Santander. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, the bank—whose principal market is in the Northeastern United States—has more than $77 billion in assets, operates 723 retail banking offices, over 2,300 ATMs and employs approximately 8,500...
and acquired the option to buy the bank for $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
40 per share for one year beginning in the middle of 2008.
In May 2007 Banco Santander Central Hispano announced that in conjunction with Royal Bank of Scotland
Royal Bank of Scotland
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group is a British banking and insurance holding company in which the UK Government holds an 84% stake. This stake is held and managed through UK Financial Investments Limited, whose voting rights are limited to 75% in order for the bank to retain its listing on the...
and Fortis
Fortis (finance)
Fortis N.V./S.A. was a company active in insurance, banking and investment management. In 2007 it was the 20th largest business in the world by revenue but after encountering severe problems in the financial crisis of 2008, most of the company was sold in parts, with only insurance activities...
it would make an offer for ABN AMRO
ABN AMRO
ABN AMRO Bank N.V. is a Dutch state-owned bank with headquarters in Amsterdam. It was re-established, in its current form, in 2009 following the acquisition and break up of ABN AMRO Group by a banking consortium consisting of Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Santander and Fortis...
. BSCH's share of the offer added up to 28% and the offer would have to be made up of a capital increase through a new share issue. Then in October 2007 the consortium outbid Barclays and acquired ABN AMRO
ABN AMRO
ABN AMRO Bank N.V. is a Dutch state-owned bank with headquarters in Amsterdam. It was re-established, in its current form, in 2009 following the acquisition and break up of ABN AMRO Group by a banking consortium consisting of Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Santander and Fortis...
. As part of the deal, Grupo Santander acquired ABN AMRO's subsidiary in Brazil, Banco Real
Banco Real
Banco Real was a Brazilian bank, owned by Spain's Banco Santander. ABN AMRO had owned the bank but in October 2007, a consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland that also included Banco Santander and Belgium's Fortis, acquired ABN AMRO and proceeded to dismember it...
, and its subsidiary in Italy, Banca Antonveneta.
On 13 August 2007, Banco Santander Central Hispano changed its legal name to Banco Santander.
In November 2007, it sold Banca Antonveneta to Monte dei Paschi di Siena
Monte dei Paschi di Siena
Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena S.p.A. is the oldest surviving bank in the world. Founded in 1472 by the Magistrate of the city state of Siena, Italy, as a mount of piety, it has been operating ever since. Today it consists of approximately 3,000 branches, 33,000 employees and 4.5 million...
. In March 2008, Banco Santander sold Interbanca
Interbanca
Interbanca is an Italian merchant bank that specializes in lending and financing transactions for medium-sized firms. Its headquarters are in Milan and it has 10 branches in major cities throughout Italy...
, a subsidiary of Banca Antonveneta, to GE Commercial Finance
GE Commercial Finance
GE Commercial Finance is a unit of GE Capital, . Headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, USA, it plays a role in over 35 countries and had assets of over US$335 billion at year end 2007....
, receiving in return GE Money businesses in Germany, Finland and Austria, and GE's Card and Auto Financing Businesses in the UK, which it will integrate into Santander Consumer Finance.
The group announced in July 2008 that it intended to takeover the UK bank Alliance & Leicester
Alliance & Leicester
Alliance & Leicester was a former UK-based bank and PLC, which in later years operated as a trading name of Santander UK before being rebranded as Santander. Alliance & Leicester was legally acquired in May 2010 by Santander UK, and was fully incorporated by 2011...
, with £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
24bn in deposits and 254 branches. The acquisition was completed in October 2008 when the group delisted the company's shares from the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
. This was followed by the acquisition of the savings business of UK bank Bradford & Bingley
Bradford & Bingley
Bradford & Bingley plc is a British bank with headquarters in the West Yorkshire town of Bingley. In 2008, partly due to the credit crunch, the bank was nationalised and in effect split into two parts; the mortgage book remained with the now publicly owned Bradford & Bingley plc, and the deposits...
(B&B) in September 2008, with deposits of £22bn, 2.6m customers, 197 branches and 140 agencies. The banks, along with Abbey
Abbey (bank)
Abbey National plc was a UK-based bank and former building society, which latterly traded under the Abbey brand name. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of Grupo Santander of Spain in 2004, and was rebranded as Santander in January 2010, forming Santander UK along with the savings business of the...
, were merged together under the Santander name in the UK at the end of 2010.
In 2006 Santander bought Drive financial. a subprime auto lender. In 2009 Santander completed the purchase of Philadelphia-based Sovereign Bancorp, a 772-branch lender with about $72 billion in assets. Santander Consumer USA, based in Dallas, has a serviced auto-loan portfolio of about $14.9 billion.United States.
In October 2008, Grupo Santander announced that it would acquire the 75.65% of Sovereign Bancorp it did not currently own for approximately US$1.9 billion (€1.4 billion): the acquisition of Sovereign gave Santander its first retail bank in the mainland United States. Santander plans to rename the bank to enhance its global brand recognition by as early as 2012.
On 10 June 2010, Grupo Santander has announced an investment of approximately US$ 270 million (€200 million) in Campinas
Campinas
Campinas is a city and municipality located in the coastal interior of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. is the administrative center of the meso-region of the same name, with 3,783,597 inhabitants as of the 2010 Census, consisting of 49 cities....
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
for a technology center, research and data processing, which will include a next-generation data center. The project will prepare the bank to expand its branch network and customer base.
This center will meet the operational unit in North America, Central America and South America, from the data processing center to research and technical area. It'll be one of five centers that Grupo Santander has in the world, but certainly the most important and modern.
Based on a plot of 1 million square meters, the new center will be established within the Technology Park CIATEC (Companhia de Desenvolvimento do Pólo de Alta Tecnologia de Campinas, in Portuguese) (Development Company for High Technology Cluster of Campinas), which is attended by more than 20 other companies. The area began to be worked out in January 2011, so that within two years, the pole is fully operational. There will be over 8,000 direct and indirect jobs.
Operations
Grupo Santander has numerous operations in Latin AmericaLatin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
. It has rebranded most of the subsidiaries it has acquired to Santander.
Grupo Santander consists of more than 170,000 employees, 90.1 million customers, 13,390 branches and 2.27 million shareholders. Retail banking
Retail banking
Retail banking is banking in which banking institutions execute transactions directly with consumers, rather than corporations or other banks. Services offered include: savings and transactional accounts, mortgages, personal loans, debit cards, credit cards, and so forth.-Types of...
- the main aspect of Santander's operations - generates 82% of the group's profit.
Currently, Santander is a corporate sponsor of the Ferrari
Scuderia Ferrari
Scuderia Ferrari is the racing team division of the Ferrari automobile marque. The team currently only races in Formula One but has competed in numerous classes of motorsport since its formation in 1929, including sportscar racing....
Formula 1 team and the Copa Libertadores de America.
On 1 December 2008, Santander announced that their Formula One sponsorship deal with McLaren will end in 2010, when Santander will become Ferrari's main sponsor. However, in September 2009, Santander announced that it will continue its sponsorship with Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes due to its brand awareness in the UK rising from 20 to 82 percent.
On 14 December 2008, it was revealed that the collapse of Bernard Madoff
Bernard Madoff
Bernard Lawrence "Bernie" Madoff is a former American businessman, stockbroker, investment advisor, and financier. He is the former non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, and the admitted operator of a Ponzi scheme that is considered to be the largest financial fraud in U.S...
's Ponzi scheme
Ponzi scheme
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation...
might mean the loss of 2.33 billion euros at Banco Santander.
On 10 November 2009, HSBC Finance Corporation announced its auto finance entities had reached an agreement with Santander Consumer USA Inc. (SC USA) to sell HSBC US auto loan servicing operations as well as US $1 billion in auto loan receivables for US $904 million in cash, and enter into a loan servicing agreement for the remainder of its US auto loan portfolio, which is in liquidation. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2010.
Global operations
- Santander Private Banking - pb.santander.com
- Santander Consumer Finance - www.santanderconsumer.com
European operations
- Austria
- Santander Consumer Bank Austria AG - www.santanderconsumer.at
- Belgium
- Santander Consumer Finance Benelux B.V. - www.santander.be
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Nova Santander Banka d.o.o. Trebinje
- Czech Republic
- Santander Consumer Finance a.s. - www.santander.cz
- Denmark
- Santander Consumer Bank AS
- Finland
- Santander Consumer Finance Oy - www.santander.fi
- France
- Santander Consumer France - www.santanderfinancements.fr
- Germany
- Santander Consumer Bank AG - www.santander.de
- Santander Consumer Debit GmbH
- Santander Consumer Leasing GmbH
- Hungary
- Santander Consumer Finance Cltd - www.santander.hu
- Isle of Man
- Alliance & Leicester InternationalAlliance & Leicester InternationalAlliance & Leicester International Limited has been part of Grupo Santander since 2008 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Santander UK plc. The bank offers a range of international savings accounts primarily to Isle of Man residents and British expatriates but also to non-domiciles living in the...
- Bradford & Bingley InternationalBradford & Bingley InternationalBradford & Bingley International was Bradford & Bingley's offshore finance armThe business of Bradford & Bingley International was transferred to Alliance & Leicester International on 5 August 2011. Both businesses have been part of Grupo Santander since 2008 and the transfer took place ahead of...
- Alliance & Leicester International
- Italy
- Santander Consumer Bank S.p.a - www.santanderconsumer.it
- Santander Private Banking
- Jersey (UK)
- Santander Private Banking
- Luxembourg
- Banco Santander Totta S.A
- Netherlands
- Santander Consumer Finance Benelux B.V. - www.santander.nl
- Norway
- Santander Consumer Bank AS - www.santander.no
- Poland
- Bank Zachodni WBK
- Santander Consumer Bank S.A. - www.santanderconsumer.pl
- Portugal
- Banco Santander Consumer Portugal, SA - www.santanderconsumer.pt
- Crédito Predial Português
- Hispamer
- Banco Santander Totta S.A
- Russia
- Santander Consumer Finance (In 2010, the Russian branch was sold, i.e. Santander left the Russian market - www.santanderconsumer.ru
- Slovak Republic
- Santander Consumer Finance a.s. - www.santander.sk
- Spain
- Banco Santander
- BanestoBanestoBanesto is a Spanish bank, 88.4% owned by Banco Santander. Currently Banesto is the fifth-largest banking group in Spain, operating around 1,770 branches....
- Santander Consumer Finance
- OpenbankOpenbankOpenbank is an online bank of Banco Santander, operating in Spain.In January 2010, Brand Republic reported that Santander were inviting bids from advertising agencies for a plan to merge all its online banking services across Europe which do not carry the Santander name, including Openbank, under...
- Banco BANIF
- Sweden
- Santander Consumer Bank - www.santander.se
- Switzerland
- Santander Private Banking
- United Kingdom
- Santander UKSantander UKSantander UK plc is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Spanish Santander Group. Based in the United Kingdom, it operates under the name of Santander. Santander is the third largest bank in the UK in terms of deposits, the second largest in terms of mortgages held, and the fourth largest in terms of...
- CahootCahootcahoot is the internet division of Santander UK plc, the United Kingdom subsidiary of Banco Santander of Spain. Cahoot was launched in 2000 as the internet-based banking brand of Abbey National plc, and at the end of 2004 had some 650,000 customers...
- Cater Allen Private Bank
- Santander Cards UK - www.santandercards.co.uk
- Santander Consumer (UK) plc - www.santanderconsumer.co.uk
- Santander Totta - www.santandertotta.co.uk
- Santander UK
Latin American operations
- Argentina
- Banco Santander RíoBanco Santander RíoBanco Santander Río is a commercial bank and financial services company and affiliate of the Santander, Cantabria based Grupo Santander. Based in Buenos Aires, its banking operations are the third largest in Argentina, as well as the largest among all privately-owned banks in the...
(after acquisition of the local Banco Río by Santander) - www.santanderrio.com.ar
- Banco Santander Río
- Brazil
- Banco Santander BrasilBanco Santander BrasilBanco Santander Brasil is a subsidiary of Banco Santander in Brazil, its largest division in Latin America and one of the world's most important, accounting for 25% of the total profit of the group...
- Banco Santander Brasil
- Chile
- Banco Santander-ChileBanco Santander-ChileBanco Santander-Chile is the largest bank in Chile by assets. The bank has 477 branches network. It is a division of Grupo Santander....
(exBanco Santander Santiago) - Banco Santander Banefe
- Banco Santander-Chile
- Colombia
- Banco Santander Colombia
- Mexico
- Banco Santander (from merger of Banco Mexicano, Banco Serfín and Santander)
- Peru
- Banco Santander Perú S.A. - www.santander.com.pe
- Puerto Rico
- Banco Santander Puerto Rico - www.santandernet.com
- Santander Overseas Bank - www.santanderoverseas.com
- Uruguay
- Banco Santander Uruguay www.santander.com.uy
Asian and Australian operations
- China
- Banco Santander, S.A. - Hong Kong Branch
- Banco Santander, S.A. - Shanghai Branch
- Banco Santander, S.A. - Beijing Representative Office
- South Korea
- Banco Santander, S.A. - Seoul Representative Office
- Australia
- Banco Santander, S.A. - Sydney Representative Office
- Japan
- Banco Santander, S.A. - Tokyo Representative Office
- Singapore
- Banco Santander, S.A. - Singapore Representative Office
Santander plans to convert its Tokyo, Australia and Singapore Representative offices to branches during 2011.
North American operations
- USA
- Santander Private Banking
- Sovereign BankSovereign BankSovereign Bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Spanish Grupo Santander. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, the bank—whose principal market is in the Northeastern United States—has more than $77 billion in assets, operates 723 retail banking offices, over 2,300 ATMs and employs approximately 8,500...
- Santander Consumer USA Inc. - www.santanderconsumerusa.com
- Santander Global Banking & Markets
- Roadloans -- www.roadloans.com
- HelpingLoans -- www.helpingloans.com
Sources
- Guillén, Mauro and Adrian Tschoegl (2008) Building a Global Bank: The Transformation of Banco Santander. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).