Mari Pinardo | Banco Santander reached an agreement on Tuesday to sell US private equity firm Blackstone a majority 51% stake in 30 billion euros of soured property assets and loans it inherited when it bought ailing lender Banco Popular in June.
For a few hours on June 7, Banco Popular had three owners: the previous shareholders, the FROB and Banco Santander; a quick trip, with a stop in between for a bit of a respite, before changing its skin. The Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM), in other words the ECB, decided on Tuesday that Popular was inviable and immediately started the liquidation process which begins with a bail-in.
After the restructuring Santander carried out in Spain in 2016, the bank could be planning to improve efficiency in other countries, including Germany. Although the project is in an initial phase, it would obtain cost savings of about 15%.
Fernando Rodríguez | Analysts who study banking stocks every day do not seem to pay much attention to the factors which condition the systemic banks. In general, they feel that whether a bank is systemic or not should not influence its stock market performance or its dividend policy. It should not be the only criteria for investing in a bank.
Banco Santander registered attributable profit of EUR 2.911 billion in the first half of 2016, a 32% decrease compared to the same period of 2015. This decline is affected by one-offs and the depreciation against the euro of the currencies of the main countries where the Group is present.
Out of the 33 banks subjected to the Federal Reserve’s stress tests, 31 have passed this year, which means they will be able to increase their dividends and share buybacks. On the other hand, Deutsche Bank and Banco Santander failed the tests due to the Fed’s doubts about their capacity to measure risk.
Ofelia Marín-Lozano | All the banks have seen a sharp decline in their profitability compared with a decade ago. This is partly due to the heavy provisions made to offset the impact of the property crisis (over 300 billion euros in accumulated terms). But it is also the result of the decrease in pre-provisions operating profit and the requirement for the lenders to raise their capital in line with assets.
Fernando Rodríguez | Spain’s big banks BBVA, Santander and Banco Popular have recently announced they will gradually reduce their branch network. What is the significance of this move? Norbolsa analyst Nagore Diez Cerceda offers us some opinions.
Banco Santander S.A. (SAN) stock reached year maximums (+2.5% to €4.69) after the bank reported its Q1 results on Wednesday. Despite a 5% net profit decline in Q1 to €1.63bn (mostly due to the depreciation of various currencies against the euro), Spain’s largest bank by market value beat expectations.