Santander plans £3 billion UK listing to expand further

The Spanish bank may need to float part of its UK business to fund its planned acquisition of RBS branches.

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by Charlie Parker on Jul 22, 2010 at 07:27

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Santander plans £3 billion UK listing to expand further

The Spanish bank which has aggressively built its UK presence throughout the credit crunch is now planning a listing of its UK operations to fund further expansion.

The bank, which has already purchased Alliance & Leicester, Abbey and part of what was Bradford & Bingley, is planning to buy 318 UK branches from the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The funds raised from the IPO would partly fund that acquisition with analysts claiming further capital raising is a pre-condition of achieving it.

Santander, which has not publically confirmed its listing, is planning to float 20% of its UK operations.

However, it remains uncertain whether stockmarkets will be buoyant enough in the Autumn for such a move. This week Ocado was forced to sharply scale back the price of its own IPO and has since seen its stock trading lower in the grey market. The bank may have to make concessions on price to acquire new investors in such a market.

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11 comments so far. Why not have your say?

Is Santander suffering from illusions of grandeur, planning such huge purchases without the capital to fund them? What happens if it fails to raise the ready?

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Employees of Abbey, B&B, Alliance & Leicester and RBS take note - start writing your CVs now - hundreds of you will need them before the end of 2011

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Not 'pubically' confirmed? That's a relief.

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How many beans make five? Answer: One and another, two and 'tuther

How many beans make minus five? Answer: You start with no beans at all, just dig five holes to put them in.

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I bank with RBS - at the moment. Though having had experience of Santander for a savings account I may not be there for long....

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What is needed is greater competiveness by encouraging new entrants tot he banking market, not another acquisition by Santander.

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As I understand it: Santander is this only bidder left. All the rest including Virgin Money have dropped out. If Santander gets these branches it will have a similar total number (1600) to its rivals Loyds Group and Natwest branded RBS. However although it might acquire the branch network I cannot see it keeping all its customers as RBS have at present branches of both its brands in some towns.

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God help us!

Santander are hopeless, the worst bank I have ever had the misfortune to have an account with. Standards of service zero, competence of staff zero.

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Santander is not good news for this country, I know how it operates in Spain and it is very fond of comisions for every transantion

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Whatever happened to the Monopolys and Mergers Commission ???

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john peacock

Jul 23, 2010 at 16:32

As the Spanish banking system is skint how long will it be before UK taxpayers are asked to bail out this somewhat greedy and certainly in my experience, incompetent bank. Are they not just borrowing to buy the good quality assets of our established building Societies etc

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