MADRID | Banco Santander announced Thursday a net attributable profit of €1.704 billion in the first half of the year. The figure brings a cut down of about 51% compared with the same period in 2011. The Spanish bank pointed out that the decline is a result of setting aside €1.304 billion for provisions for real estate exposure in Spain of the second quarter ordinary profit of €1.404 billion. As a…
LONDON | Spain's giant Santander must be doing something right. Santander was named best global bank while Deutsche Bank was awarded the title of best global investment bank at Euromoney’s Awards for Excellence ceremony in London last night. The best global bank award was collected personally by Santander’s chairman, Emilio Botín, a gesture that probably intended to demonstrate his UK shareholders and clients that the British branch have a top place…
Humberside-based air transport business Eastern Airways Europe said Thursday its future expansion plans are now backed up after securing refinancing from Santander Corporate Banking. Eastern Airways Europe is a regional air transport business operating in the UK and across Europe. The business was founded in 1997 as a service for oil and gas workers living in the UK and working offshore. Since then, Eastern Airways has evolved to provide transport operations…
MADRID | Finance daily newspaper Expansion reported Tuesday that investment bank Goldman Sachs expects Santander and BBVA stock price to go up by 50 percent, according to an analysts’ note. The confidence of Goldman Sachs experts goes far beyond the two big Spanish banks, too. All medium-sized banks in Spain had their ratings updated with higher value, apart from Bankinter, whose share price was reduced to €2.70 or 10% lower than at Monday’s close. The punishment Spain’s banking…
LONDON | Less than 5 percent of all small businesses play the biggest role in boosting the UK economy, a new report by Santander Corporate Banking has concluded. The study, released Tuesday, also indicated that this same small fraction of SMEs accounts for two-thirds of all private-sector employment. Santander analysts found that a very limited number of small businesses have a significantly higher economic impact than the rest of the UK small…
MADRID | Banco Santander on Monday announced that the banking group in Spain, including Banesto, will require €2.7 billion before taxes to comply with the new legislation passed last May 11 on real estate asset provisions. These charges are in addition to the reserves already made compulsory by a decree-law in February, of which €2.3 billion before taxes are still pending, as stated in a filing sent to the Spanish regulator…
MADRID | Ferrovial and the local authorities of the Spanish city of Santander reached an agreement to create a research centre for Intelligent Cities, the company said on Wednesday. The Centre’s researchers may also work on projects implemented under the cooperation agreement between Ferrovial and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This new public-private initiative in the area of research and urban development will adopt an open innovation approach which enables it to join projects…
MADRID | Banco Santander registered a net attributable profit of €1.604 billion in the first quarter of 2012, a decline of 24% year on year. Santander, that released Thursday its results for the January-March period of this year, noted that this decline was mainly due to the significant increase in provisions for non-performing loans, which rose by 51% to €3.127 billion. Banco Santander revenues in the first quarter grew by more than…
MADRID, LONDON | Emilio Botin will be re-elected on Saturday as board director and president of the Spanish financial group, currently third in the domestic rank after Caixabank and BBVA. But he got today a special gift via London: Banco Santander was named ‘Business Bank of the Year’ in the UK at the annual Business Moneyfacts Awards for its strategy to become the small and medium-sized companies’ bank of choice. It was the…
Should Banco Santander and BBVA watch out for this one? The absorption of Banca Cívica, approved on Monday by Caixabank’s board, will create the leading bank in the Spanish market, with assets of €342 billion, stock market capitalization in excess of €16 billion, 14 million customers and an average Spanish market share in deposits of 14.0%, in customer loans of 13.4% and in total assets of 10.5%. CaixaBank will become…