Santander to Raise $8.88 Billion in Capital
Spanish Bank to Reduce Dividend
By Jeannette Neumann and Christopher Bjork
Updated Jan. 8, 2015 10:24 a.m. ET
MADRID— Banco Santander SA said it will raise up to €7.5 billion ($8.88 billion) in a capital hike, a bid by its new executive chairman, Ana Botín, to address long-standing concerns among investors and analysts that its financial cushion is thinner than those of other big European banks.
Santander said in a regulatory filing Thursday that it would raise the capital through an accelerated book building process, which entails selling the stock overnight to institutional investors. Santander chose Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and UBS AG to oversee the capital hike, a person close to the bank said.
The bank, the eurozone’s largest by market value, said the share sale would amount to 9.9% of its capital level before the hike.
Analysts estimated that the hike would put Santander’s capital level—under international regulations known as “fully loaded” Basel III criteria—at around 10% of risk-weighted assets, more in line with its European peers.
Santander said in its most recent quarterly earnings report in November that its capital ratio was expected to be about 8.5% to 8.6% of risk-weighted assets at the end of 2014, a source of concern for analysts and investors.
The Spanish stock market regulator suspended trading in the bank’s shares Thursday ahead of the afternoon announcement.
The bank is also slashing its dividend in 2015 to €0.2 per share, down from the €0.6 per share it has paid since 2007. Santander said it would divide the annual payment to shareholders into three cash dividends and one scrip dividend.
The capital hike is one of several major decisions by Ms. Botín to put her stamp on the bank since taking over as the bank’s executive chairman in September after the death of her father, longtime chairman Emilio Botín.
Since then, Ms. Botín has replaced Javier Marín, an executive who was close to her father, as Santander’s chief executive officer. She also disbanded an international advisory board, distancing the bank from a board member who is the target of a high-profile criminal investigation into suspected fraud during his leadership of a different bank.
She also appointed a new chief financial officer and three other board members, a bid to rejuvenate a board that analysts and investors had criticized as too old and chummy with Mr. Botín.
Ms. Botín has overseen the launch of competitive terms for a checking account in Catalonia, a bid to bolster the bank’s presence in the economically-powerful Spanish region. Analysts have said that move won’t make a major difference in Santander’s revenue in Spain, but shows that Ms. Botín won’t be outpaced by other rivals who have expanded in Catalonia recently.
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