Grupo santander

The modern banking group is the result of numerous mergers and acquisitions, the most significant of which was the merger in 1999 of Banco Santander and Banco Central Hispano , the first and third largest banks in Spain, respectively ^[6] .

Banco Santander was founded by royal decree of Isabella II in 1857 in Santander to finance trade between Spain and Latin America. By the beginning of the First World War, the bank took one of the leading places in Spain. Since 1909, representatives of the Botini family appeared in the bank’s management, by the 1990s making it the largest financial institution in the country, mainly through the efforts of Emilio Botín , who headed the bank in 1986 ^{[6] [7] [8]} .

Banco Central was founded in Madrid on December 6, 1919 and was engaged in the financing of the emerging industry in Spain, mainly coal mining , steel , shipbuilding and cardboard and paper. The Great Depression in the United States had a significant effect on Spain’s financial sector, but Banco Central not only withstood, but also significantly expanded its activities by absorbing less successful competitors. When the Bank of Spain was made a national bank in 1931, Banco Central took over its commercial activities. By the end of World War II, the bank entered the top five largest banks in Spain and took an active part in the post-war reconstruction of the country's industry; Representatives of the bank joined the board of most companies that were financed by Banco Central. With the participation of the bank in the 1960s, the Saltos del Sil hydroelectric station was reconstructed, the first private oil company Compania Espanola de Petroleos SA and the largest construction company of Spain Dragados y Construcciones SA appeared. The economic rise in the 1960s was followed by a decline in the 1970s and Banco Central again began to buy bankrupt competitors, from 1970 to 1975, doubling the number of branches (to a thousand) and even more increased its presence in the industry. By 1980, Banco Central became the largest bank in Spain, but under the leadership of Alfonso Escámez , which led the bank from 1973 to 1992, remained conservative and not ready to liberalize the financial market in the second half of the 1980s. To maintain its position, the bank merged with Banco Hispano Americano in 1991. This bank was founded in 1900 and for a long time was one of the largest banks in Spain, but unsuccessful acquisitions in the early 1980s weakened it considerably. The merged bank, called Banco Central Hispano, led Angel Corcostegui (Angel Corcostegui), who began by reducing the number of employees by 10 thousand and reducing the number of branches by 20% ^[6] .

In 1998, Banco Santander completed its takeover in the first half of the Banesto Bank , and in 1999 it was announced that Banco Santander would merge with Banco Central Hispano. The resulting Banco Santander Central Hispano led Korkostegi, the number of employees exceeded 100 thousand, and the number of branches - 6,200 ^[6] .

Mergers and Acquisitions

Between 1985 and 2010 alone, the group spent $ 70 billion on acquisitions ^[9] .

In 2004, Santander acquired for £ 9 billion British bank Abbey National ^[10] In 2008, together with the purchased Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley, he formed the Santander UK division, the fifth largest bank in the UK with more than 1,000 branches. In 2007, the Dutch bank ABN Amro was bought in a consortium with the Royal Bank of Scotland and Fortis , its Italian and Brazilian branches were incorporated into Grupo Santander; for partners in a consortium, in contrast to Santander, this purchase resulted in large losses ^[7] .

In July 2010, the bank bought 173 branches in Germany for 555 million euros from the Swedish bank SEB , and in August of the same year bought 318 branches in the UK from the Royal Bank of Scotland and bought out car loans for $ 4.3 billion from HSBC ^[5] .

In September 2010, Santander announced the purchase from Allied Irish Banks (AIB) of a 70% stake in the Polish Bank Zachodni WBK (fifth largest asset in the country) for 4.2 billion euros ^[5] .

Banco Santander was owned by the Botin family for a significant part of its history, but as a result of mergers and acquisitions, their share was reduced to 2% ^[8] . The lists of shareholders were not disclosed, however, according to the annual report for 2015, none of them has more than 5% of the shares. Board members in total own about 1.2% of the shares ^[1] .

The Santander group is managed by a board of 15 directors, each of whom is appointed by the shareholders meeting for a 3-year term. The chairman of the board of directors, four vice-chairmen and the chief executive officer ( CEO ) ^{[1] are} elected from among the directors.

• Ana Botin - Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank since 2014, member of the Board of Directors since 1989, from 1981 to 1989 worked at JP Morgan Chase . He is also the non-managing director of The Coca-Cola Company ^[11] . Before her, Banco Santander’s chairmanship was successively held by her great-grandfather (1909–1950), grandfather (1950–1986) and father (1986–1999, 2002–2014), all named Emilio ^[4] , her brother being one of the directors ^{[ 1]} .
• José Antonio Alvarez ( José Antonio Alvarez , born in 1960) - Chief Executive Officer since 2014, in the company since 2002 ^{[11] [1]} .

Grupo Santander for 2015 consisted of more than 780 companies, the main one, Banco Santander, accounts for about a third of the assets (however, the name Banco Santander often applies to the whole group). Group activity is divided according to two criteria: geographical and functional. Four regions are geographically distinguished:

• Continental Europe - Spain, Portugal (Banco Santander Totta, SA) and Poland; in 2015, 58,000 employees worked in this region, there were 5,548 outlets (from the bottom 3,467 in Spain), a turnover of € 12.8 billion, and a net profit of € 2.479 billion.
• Great Britain - 26 thousand employees, 858 offices, about a third of all customer accounts and loans issued by the group Santander; turnover - € 6.383 billion, net profit - € 2 billion
• Latin America - Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay; 90 thousand employees and 5841 offices; turnover in 2015 - € 18.755 billion, net profit - € 3.799 billion.
• USA - 18 thousand employees, 783 branches; turnover in 2015 - € 7.8 billion, net profit - € 1 billion ^[1] .

Functional division:

• Retail banking - turnover in 2015 amounted to € 40.358 billion, net profit - € 7.966 billion.
• Global corporate banking - turnover amounted to € 5.271 billion, net profit - € 1.746 billion.
• Real estate transactions in Spain - turnover in 2015 amounted to 327 million, a net loss of € 420 million ^[1] .

In 2015, deposits in Banco Santander amounted to € 858.5 billion, of which € 175.4 billion - deposits from central banks and credit institutions. The size of loans issued amounted to € 817.4 billion, of which € 167.9 billion in Spain ^[1] .

In the list of the largest public companies in the world, Forbes Global 2000 for 2016, Banco Santander ranked 37th, including 20th by assets, 66th by net profit, 108th by market capitalization and 149th by turnover. In the list of the most expensive brands in the world, the financial group ranked 72nd ^[12] .

In 2015, Banco Santander ranked 91st among the largest investment companies in the world in terms of assets under management ($ 177 billion) ^[13] .

Santander serves as the title sponsor of the Chinese Grand Prix, the Spanish Grand Prix, the German Grand Prix and the British Grand Prix , as well as partnering with teams such as McLaren and Scuderia Ferrari in Formula 1 ^[7] .

In September 2007, the group announced its title sponsorship of the main club football tournament in South America - the Libertadores Cup , starting in 2008 . Previously, the tournament was sponsored by Japanese Toyota .

• Official band website
• Banco Santander, SA on the website of the Securities and Exchange Commission (English)