MADRID – Banco Santander SA Chairman Ana Patricia Botin, addressing shareholders for the first time since taking over from her father last week, pledged to pursue his strategy, characterized by a “clear vision” and “prudent risk-taking.”
“The group has the capital base, balance-sheet strength and capacity for revenue generation necessary” for growth, said Botin Monday in Santander, Spain, at the investor meeting called for the buyout of the bank’s Brazilian unit. “Positive” earnings trends continued into the third quarter, she said.
Botin, 53, made her debut appearance after being named chairman on Sept. 10 following the death of her father Emilio the night before at the age of 79. Botin faces investor concern that capital is weaker than some competitors’ while needing to assert her leadership at the bank, which her family has helped run for more than a century.
“The first challenge is keeping the internal cohesion at the bank,” said David Vaamonde, an analyst at Main First Bank in Madrid, who rates Santander underperform. “Maintaining a bank with a capital ratio lower than its peers is another important challenge.”
Board bupport
Botin, wearing a black pinstripe suit with a red scarf, said she has the support of the board, which she first joined more than 25 years ago. The family owns about 2 percent of Santander.
Shareholders convened in the Spanish port city of Santander, where it was founded in 1857, approved plans to issue stock backing a 4.7 billion-euro ($6 billion) bid for as much as 25 percent of the Brazilian business that it doesn’t already own. Should all investors accept the offer, Santander will create shares that represent 5.6 percent of the bank’s capital.
“Maintaining the success story of recent decades will not be easy: the competitive and regulatory environments are ever-more demanding,” Botin said.
Santander is one of the few European lenders that isn’t regularly publishing its capital ratio according to the full application of Basel III rules. Emilio Botin said in January the bank would aim for a capital ratio by that measure of 9 percent by the end of this year.
“We think they are short of capital,” Andrea Williams, who helps manage about 50 billion pounds ($81 billion) as head of European equities at Royal London Asset Management in London, said by phone. “She is a bit more of a delegator and she has a good team around her – I’d like to think she’d listen more to management.”
