Emilio Botín

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Emilio Botín (2010)

Emilio Botín-Sanz de Sautuola García de los Ríos (born October 1, 1934 in Santander , Cantabria , † September 9, 2014 in Madrid ) was a Spanish banker .

Life

Emilio Botín was the third generation president of Banco Santander , successor to his father and grandfather, both of whom were also called Emilio Botín. His great-grandfather was one of the bank's nine founding members in 1857. Under the leadership of the third Emilio Botín, Banco Santander rose to become the leading European financial institution.

Botín was raised by Jesuits and studied law at the Universidad de Deusto in Bilbao . At the age of 24 he joined the bank run by his father; at the age of 30 he was promoted to general manager. In 1986 he took over the presidency from his father.

The Spanish banking system was characterized by cartel-like structures until he took office . The leading representatives of the Spanish banking houses met regularly for lunch in Madrid. The conditions they granted their customers differed little from each other. Botín canceled these regular meetings. Instead, he offered his customers significantly higher credit interest rates and significantly lower loan interest rates than his competitors - and thus achieved that his bank grew at the expense of its competitors. In 1993 Banco Santander was able to take over the major bank Banesto , which had run into financial difficulties . In 1999 the merger with Banco Central Hispano (BCH) followed, supposedly a merger of equals. The merged company operated under the name of Banco Santander Central Hispano . Botín, however, pushed the two directors of BCH out of office, which led to lengthy legal battles. Since August 13, 2007, the company has been operating under the name Banco Santander again .

After Banco Santander had risen to become the leading Spanish bank, a policy of aggressive expansion abroad followed, on the one hand by establishing subsidiaries around the world, with a focus on Europe and South America, on the other hand by taking over financial institutions or acquiring equity interests. In 2008 Banco Santander was one of the ten largest banking companies in the world.

Emilio Botín hit the headlines as part of the Swiss Leaks scandal . In addition to members of royalty from the Middle East, Syria's ruler Bashar al-Assad , China's former Prime Minister Li Peng, stars like David Bowie, athletes like Fernando Alonso, his name was also on a list of suspected tax evaders that Hervé Falciani handed over to the authorities. He was seen as a public shy, but maintained good contacts with the former Spanish Prime Minister José Zapatero and his Minister of Economics Pedro Solbes , who - according to Le Monde - owed it to him that they could boast of the stability of the Spanish banking system. Le Monde emphasized that for all his risk taking, Botín had made caution his guiding principle. His statement that his company is better equipped than the competition to weather the financial crisis of October 2008 is no boast.

With the acquisition of a number of British finance houses since 2004, Botín became known in the Anglo-Saxon-speaking world. Some videos are circulating on YouTube that do not harm the strongly Spanish-tinged pronunciation of Don Emilio in English.

Emilio Botín was married to Marquesa Paloma de O'Shea, a Basque nobleman of Irish origin. The family, who live in a large, castle-like property in Madrid, has six children. The family's personal wealth was estimated at over $ 1 billion in 2009, making it one of the world's thousand highest wealth. Emilio Botín died of a heart attack on September 9, 2014 . His eldest daughter Ana Patricia Botín , previously CEO of Santander UK, succeeded him as President of the Santander Group.

literature

  • Jean-Jacques Bozonnet: Emilio Botin: Le banquier qui ignore la crise , Le Monde, October 7, 2008, p. 21

Web links

Commons : Emilio Botín  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ^ Emilio Botín, presidente del Banco Santander . ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed October 5, 2014  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / debod.com
  2. ^ Anne Grüttner: Emilio Botín: Spain's Josef Ackermann . Handelsblatt Online, January 13, 2010, accessed on January 14, 2010.
  3. ↑ Spain drops Botín family tax evasion probe . In: Financial Times . Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  4. ↑ The World's Billionaires: # 647 Emilio Botin . Forbes Magazine , March 11, 2009; Retrieved January 14, 2010.
  5. ^ Rheinische Post of September 11, 2014; Communication from Santander to the Financial Regulator CNMV
personal data
SURNAME Botín, Emilio
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Emilio Botín-Sanz de Sautuola García de los Ríos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish banker and billionaire
DATE OF BIRTH October 1, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Santander , Spain
DATE OF DEATH September 9, 2014
Place of death Madrid , Spain