Banco Santander said on Thursday that it would begin a capital increase of as much as 7.5 billion euros (US$8.8 billion), equal to almost a tenth of its stock market value, in a bid to strengthen its balance sheet.
The Spanish bank, one of Europe’s largest financial institutions, said in a statement to the Spanish stock market regulator that it planned to issue new shares via “an accelerated” sale. In 2008, Banco Santander undertook a similarly large capital increase equivalent to 7.2 billion euros at Thursday’s exchange rates.
The move comes after a significant management overhaul. In September, the bank decided to maintain its family leadership by appointing Ana Patricia Botin as executive chairwoman, after the death of her father, Emilio Botin, who ran and transformed Banco Santander over two decades from a family-controlled regional bank into Spain’s largest bank by assets.
Photo: AFP
Two months later, Botin made her own significant changes, removing Javier Marin, who had been appointed chief executive two years earlier by her father, and promoting instead Jose Antonio Alvarez, Santander’s chief financial officer, as the new chief executive.
Banco Santander does not regularly make public its capital ratio, unlike most of its European rivals. Marin, however, estimated shortly before his ouster that the capital ratio would be about 8.5 percent at the end of last year, under the so-called Basel III rules, slightly below the 9 percent level the bank had initially forecast.
Shares in Banco Santander rose 3 percent on Thursday, before trading was suspended by the stock market regulator pending a statement from the bank. Banco Santander said it would provide further details on the capital increase on Thursday, after a meeting of its board.
The bank also said it expected the board to approve a change in its dividend payment policy. Shareholders will be offered cash for three of the four payments expected this year, while one will be in shares. The overall dividend payout, however, is likely to be US$0.20 per share this year, the bank said, compared with US$0.60 last year.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
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