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Building a Global Bank The Transformation of Banco Santander
By Mauro F. Guillén Adrian Tschoegl Princeton University Press
Copyright © 2008 Princeton University
All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-691-13125-2
Chapter One Family-Led Banks in the Global Economy
Twenty years ago I would never have dreamt that we would be the ninth-largest bank in the world. -Emilio Botín III, in Euromoney, 1 July 2005 Santander is one of the most remarkable stories in modern banking. -Euromoney, 1 July 2005
Banco Santander is an oddity in the big leagues of global banking. Barely two decades ago, this proud financial institution was no more than a second-tier player in Spain, a country rarely if ever regarded as being on the cutting edge of banking. Nowadays, Santander is not only one of the world's ten largest banks but also the pioneer in European cross-border banking acquisitions with its 2004 takeover of Abbey National in the United Kingdom, a deal worth US$15 billion. This book tells the story of Santander's striking transformation from being a medium-sized Spanish bank to becoming the largest financial institution in Latin America, the largest bank in the Euro Zone with a market capitalization of nearly US$115 billion, and a major competitor in consumer finance in Northern and Eastern Europe. The bank has also made headlines around the world through alliances and equity stakes in MetLife, First Union, Royal Bank of Scotland,Société Générale, Vodafone, Shinsei Bank, and a number of other companies, from which it eventually divested and obtained more than US$7 billion in capital gains.
Santander stands out as an example of a modern corporation blending family guidance at the top with professional management throughout the organization. It is the only large bank in the world in which three successive generations of the same family have held the top executive position, despite owning a mere 2.5 percent of the equity. After taking the helm in 1986, Emilio Botín III embraced deregulation of the domestic banking sector and initiated a series of bold competitive moves, first in Latin America and later in Europe and the United States, that eventually catapulted the bank from 152nd in the world to the number 10 spot. When he retires sometime in the next few years, his daughter Ana Patricia, a seasoned executive, could well become the first woman to run one of the world's largest and most influential financial institutions.
Santander is neither as global in geographic reach nor as diversified in terms of the services it offers as Citibank or HSBC, the world's two largest banks. Most of its operations are focused on commercial (e.g., retail) banking, an activity in which operational efficiency, information technology, and marketing are fundamental tools when it comes to increasing market share or boosting profitability. Higher-margin activities such as wholesale, private, and investment banking represent very small shares of revenues or profits at Santander. Still, in 2006 the bank reported the seventh-largest banking profits in the world, 7.6 billion [euro] (about US$10.3 billion). After years of depressed profitability due to financial crises in Latin America and acquisitions in Europe, the bank's 2.3 million individual shareholders are now enjoying annual returns in excess of 30 percent, above those for most other comparable banks.
The rapid rise to global prominence of a family-led bank originating 150 years ago from a rather marginal provincial town in northern Spain raises a key question. In a recent article, the Economist (16 February 2006) asked, "Why are Spanish companies-hailing from a middle-sized country with little entrepreneurial tradition, income levels that are still below the European Union average, weak language skills and few natural resources-becoming the hunters, and not the hunted?" Much of the evidence in this book focuses on the two main answers to that tantalizing question, as reported by the same magazine: "First, many used expansion in Latin America as a training ground, gaining size and management skills, and hoarding cash. Second, Spain has opened its domestic markets to competition more quickly and more thoroughly than many other European countries. That has taught Spanish firms to sink or swim."
Besides the more general question of what has made a number of Spanish companies successful in the global economy, Santander itself raises intriguing questions specific to its own experience. What capabilities have made it possible for a firm in a mature industry to better its rivals in so many different countries around the world? What aspects of family-led management have made it possible to grow so fast via acquisition? How has the family managed to exercise influence over corporate governance and strategic decision making while owning just 2.5 percent of the shares? What are the issues surrounding managerial succession? This book seeks to answer these questions by analyzing Santander in the context of a banking industry undergoing rapid technological and competitive changes since the mid 1980s and by providing information and insights into not just Santander but also its global competitors in Europe and the Americas.
We begin our journey in this chapter by reviewing the characteristics of banking as an economic activity and examining the prevalence of family banks in the world in general and Spain in particular. In chapters 2 and 3, we tell the story of the humble origins of Banco Santander in the mid-nineteenth century; its growth via acquisition starting in the 1940s to become a national bank, with the Botín family already leading the bank; and its daring diversification into a wide variety of businesses during the 1960s and 1970s, albeit to a lesser degree than its competitors, which helped it weather the industrial crisis of the 1970s and 1980s. Chapter 4 delves into the complex and intrigue-filled process that led to the combination of three of Spain's largest banks (Banesto, Central, and Hispano Americano) with Santander to create SCH (Santander Central Hispano). In this chapter we will also point out that Santander's family character enabled it to take the initiative while its rivals were enmeshed in difficult mergers and managerial struggles. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 focus on Santander's internationalization, first in Latin America through acquisitions and in the United States through minority positions in the Mid-Atlantic region, then in Europe in the form of alliances with other banks, and lastly with acquisitions in Europe. In those chapters, we also deal with the bank's increasing sophistication in the areas of information technology and marketing. Chapter 8 deals with the impact that family leadership has had on Santander over the years, highlighting the issues of decision-making style, corporate governance, and managerial succession. Finally, Chapter 9 looks at Santander's performance and at the future, analyzing the bank's strengths and weaknesses, its growth options, and its potentially pivotal role in markets as disparate as Europe, Latin America, the United States, and China.
The evidence presented in this book comes from a variety of sources, including interviews with more than fifty executives, policymakers, equity analysts, and journalists; legal filings; internal documents given to us during interviews; financial data on the performance of Santander in comparison to other banks; equity analyst reports; and newspaper articles. We attribute information or points of view to specific individuals or organizations whenever possible, unless an interviewee specifically asked us to keep the source confidential. The book thus rests on various kinds of information, both quantitative and qualitative, which we present descriptively and analytically using statistical methods of analysis. The narrative is largely chronological, given that the temporal ordering of decisions and events was material to the emergence of Santander as one of the world's largest banks. However, we have structured the various chapters on a chronological sequence by topic: the origins of the bank (1857-1950), the creation of an industrial group (1950-86), growth through domestic mergers and acquisitions (1986-99), international expansion in Latin America and Europe (1982 to the present), corporate governance (1980 to the present), and performance (1986 to the present).
Bankers and Banks Worldwide
In the course of history, bankers have engaged in many different types of financial activities, ranging from issuing currency, taking deposits, and extending loans, to discounting paper, providing capital to manufacturing firms, brokering all sorts of transactions, making markets, and managing assets. Historians, clerics, economists, princes, and potentates have variously depicted the bankers and their banks as the heroes and the villains of the market economy. Bankers have occupied the spotlight because of both their rise to prominence during boom times and their fall from grace during financial panics. The popular imagination has always portrayed banks as powerful actors. Thomas Jefferson thought that "banking establishments are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies." Mark Twain was no less critical: "A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain." Fully cognizant of the role of banks during the nineteenth century, before governments around the world asserted their authority over monetary matters, Mayer Anselm Rothschild used to say: "Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws." And industrialists the world over have tended to fear and loath their power. As a representative of many similar statements, Henry Ford's declaration captures the sentiment: "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
Banking, Industrialization, and the State
Banking is a prominent and symbolic activity because banks tend to play a crucial role in economic development. Manufacturing growth requires the transfer of massive amounts of resources from backward to dynamic economic sectors and often from foreign lenders to targeted domestic recipients. Beginning with Gerschenkron's landmark book, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (1962), the literature has studied banks in the abstract, focusing mainly on their contribution to the development of manufacturing industry and placing a strong emphasis on state-bank and bank- industry relations. Despite decades of research, there is no agreement in the literature as to whether the banking sector-and financial markets in general-should be organized according to market- or state-centered principles in order to accelerate economic development (Cameron 1972; Cameron et al. 1967; Fry 1995; Haggard and Lee 1993; Loriaux 1991, 1997a, 1997b; Zysman 1983), though some recent research shows that government ownership of banks during the 1970s was associated with slower subsequent financial development and lower growth of per capita income and productivity (La Porta et al., 2002).
Due to historical legacies, power struggles, and political compromises, countries have adopted different systems of banking regulation. In some countries, such as the United States, legislation in the early twentieth century restricted the power and range of activity of banks, resulting in a system in which retail banks are not as prominent as in other countries, such as Germany, which allowed them to operate as universal financial institutions engaging in both commercial and investment banking (Deeg 1999; O'Sullivan 2000). In other countries, banks have operated under strong state controls, as in South Korea until the mid-1980s (Fields 1995; Woo 1991); in still other countries, such as India, the state owns much of the banking sector.
Previous scholarship on economic development has largely focused on the determinants of industrial growth, under the assumption that services merely "support" industrialization (Amsden 1989; Guillén 2001; Haggard and Maxfield 1993). However, banks are part of the financial system. In theory, effective financial systems allocate capital to the "best," or highest return-for-risk, projects. In doing this, they maximize value added for a given capital cost by identifying and funding those firms and entrepreneurs with good projects but insufficient resources. (What is perhaps less appreciated is that they also deny funding to poor projects. Furthermore, the better the financial system, including the banks, the less funding there is of bad projects, and the less rejection of good ones.) Effective financial systems equalize the cost of capital across similar projects and lower it by borrowing from the most patient, allocating risk to the least risk-averse, and by transforming risk and liquidity through credit contracts and risk pooling. They do this by developing new products, distribution channels, and services. The lower cost of capital then increases potential output. These tasks are not trivial, and it is clear that finance matters to development (de Gregorio and Guidotti 1995; King and Levine 1993; Lewis 1978).
A vibrant banking sector can potentially offer many other benefits in addition to effective and efficient resource mobilization and allocation to investors. First, it has the potential of creating large numbers of jobs, ranging from low-skilled bank tellers to highly educated financial analysts and managers. Second, it can generate multiple linkages to other activities, such as insurance, tourism, education, information services, software, and telecommunications. Third, if banks become internationally competitive and start expanding abroad, they may create new market opportunities for other domestic firms, manufacturing or otherwise.
The Rules of Competition in Retail Banking
Given our focus on banking as a service activity in its own right and the fact that Santander has over the years come to concentrate its competitive efforts in retail banking, it is important to review the basic rules of competition in this industry. Banks attempt to borrow cheap and lend dear; the resulting interest rate spread is a primary source of income, one that observers commonly label "asset-based income." Banks also obtain income from the fees and commissions they charge for services, such as funds transfers and brokerage. The common label here is "fee-based income." Not surprisingly, the saying in the industry is that "retail banking is boring, and if it is not boring, then it isn't retail banking." Lastly, banks may earn capital gains on more speculative activities, such as trading in the foreign exchange or interest rate markets, or holding securities in countries where they may invest in nonfinancial enterprises. This abstract characterization, however, omits the creativity involved in improving processes to cut costs and in marketing efforts to develop innovative products that offer convenience, reward customer loyalty, or solve customers' problems. In all of these activities, there is money to be made. As a result, successful, large retail banks command a great deal of power and influence in many countries around the world.
One may think of a bank's strategy from two, complementary perspectives. First, there are Porter's (1980) three generic strategies. Overall cost leadership involves establishing efficient operations and taking advantage of economies of scale. Product differentiation, by contrast, is all about quality and service. Finally, a niche strategy entails segmenting the market in order to identify profitable groups of customers. These three strategies are not mutually exclusive and banks typically pursue all, though with differing priorities depending on the market, and especially on the behavior of competitors.
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Excerpted from Building a Global Bank by Mauro F. Guillén Adrian Tschoegl
Copyright © 2008 by Princeton University. Excerpted by permission.
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