By David Román
MADRID-- Emilio Botín, chairman of Banco Santander SA and widely
regarded as one of the most powerful people in Spain over the past
three decades, has died of a heart attack at the age of 79.
Santander's board planned to meet later in the day to pick a
successor to Mr. Botín, who built up the bank from a small regional
lender into the largest bank in the eurozone by market value.
In recent years, Mr. Botín had privately expressed a preference
for his daughter Ana Patricia, who runs the bank's U.K. operations,
to succeed him at the helm, according to bankers. They view Matías
Rodríguez Inciarte, Santander's deputy chairman, as another
possible candidate.
Uncertainty over the succession drove Santander's shares lower
Wednesday. At midmorning they traded down 1.8%.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called Mr. Botín's death a
loss for the country, as he was a driver of corporate Spain's
international expansion.
"This has been a surprise, since I just had a meeting with him
last week and he looked to be well, in great shape," Mr. Rajoy
added. "It's a big blow."
Calling Mr. Botín "a pioneer," Sergio Ermotti, CEO of Swiss bank
UBS AG said his death was "a great loss to the industry."
Mr. Botín was born in 1934 in Santander, a small city on the
northern coast of Spain, traditionally the busiest trading port for
the Castille region.
The Botíns have controlled Banco Santander since the early 20th
century, when Emilio Botín's grandfather became chairman. Emilio
Botín became a board member in 1960, and succeeded his father as
chairman in 1986.
An able negotiator, Mr. Botín took advantage of government plans
to force mergers in Spain's banking sector, with the aim of
creating larger lenders that would better able to compete in the
European market.
The implosion of larger rival Banesto SA, which was taken over
by the government in late 1993, offered a key opening for Mr.
Botín, who secured the purchase of the troubled lender at an
auction the next year.
From that point, Mr. Botín increased the scale of Santander
through an aggressive series of acquisitions, gaining a reputation
for deal-making that soon went beyond Spanish borders.
The purchase of the U.K.'s Abbey National in 2004, a then-rare
move by a Spanish company into the British market, was a key step
along the way.
Several acquisitions in Latin America have also contributed to
Santander's rapid growth, but it was a move in Italy--for centuries
a tough market for Spanish businesspeople--that many regard as Mr.
Botín's greatest hit, said Nick Anderson, an analyst at Berenberg
Bank.
In 2007, Banco Santander made a 50% profit on the sale of
Italy's Antonveneta to rival bank Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena,
for EUR9 billion euros ($11.7 billion)--just a few days after it
bought Antonveneta.
The deal was the closing touch to a series of transactions that
had resulted in Santander taking over Antonveneta--which it touted
as a first step on a planned expansion in Italy that never
happened--as part of a combined deal to buy Dutch lender
ABN-Amro.
The sheer complexity of the ABN deal, involving several other
European banks, the unusual speed with which Antonveneta was bought
and sold and the large premium for the deal are all cited by
observers as hallmarks of Mr. Botín's business acumen.
Mr. Botín was "a legendary character...[and] a phenomenal deal
maker" whose passing marked "the end of an era," Mr. Anderson
said.
An avid golfer, one of his daughters was married to golf star
Severiano Ballesteros, Mr. Botín was also a big fan of Formula One
motor racing, which Santander sponsored, and especially Spanish
former World Champion Fernando Alsonso.
Write to David Román at david.roman@wsj.com
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