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 the age of 79.
Mr. Botín, who built up Santander from a small regional lender
into one of the largest banks in the eurozone, died overnight, the
Spanish bank said Wednesday. Santander's board plans to meet later
in the day to pick a new chairman.
In recent years, observers have said Mr. Botín had privately
expressed a preference for his daughter Ana-Patricia to succeed him
at the helm.
The Botín family is the largest shareholder of the bank, if all
its stock is combined, but the bank's capital is highly fragmented,
and it is unclear whether Ms. Botín would have enough board support
to succeed her father.
In a note to investors, Nick Anderson, an analyst at Berenberg
Bank, called Mr. Botín "a legendary character...[and] a phenomenal
deal maker" whose passing marked "the end of an era."
Mr. Botín was born in 1934 in Santander, a small city on the
northern coast of Spain that was traditionally the busiest trading
port for Castille, the interior region around which the early
modern Spanish empire was created.
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 avid golfer and 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.
Write to David Román at david.roman@wsj.com
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