How it started
History
Banco Santander was founded in 1857 as Banco de Santander. Santander expanded in Latin America during the mid-1990s and early 2000s through acquisitions across the region. These operations became an important source of earnings for the Group during the following decades and particularly in the aftermath of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Historical research has emphasised that the success of Santander's expansion in Latin America depended not only on acquisitions but also on the integration of management practices and the way it deployed information technology across the region.
In 1999, it merged with Banco Central Hispano, or BCH, which had in turn been formed through the 1991 merger of Banco Central and Banco Hispanoamericano. The combined bank, known as Banco Santander Central Hispano, or BSCH, was designed to be a "merger of equals", in which the top executives of the two pre-existing firms would share control of the merged entity.
Soon after the merger former BCH executives accused Banco Santander chairman Emilio Botín Sanz de Sautuola y García de los Ríos of trying to push his own agenda and threatened to take legal action. This post-merger disagreement was resolved when BCH executives Jose Amusátegui and Angel Corcóstegui agreed to accept severance payments, retire and pass control to Botín, at an expense to shareholders of €183 million. The large termination payouts generated negative press, and Botín was eventually brought to trial on criminal charges of "misappropriation of funds" and "irresponsible management". However, in April 2005, the court cleared him of all charges, the €164 million retirement payments made to the two former executives having been found to be legal, "made as compensation for the services provided to the bank". Also that year, the anti-corruption division of the Spanish public prosecutor's office cleared Botín of all charges in a separate case, in which he was accused of insider trading.
In 2007, the bank officially changed the official name back to Banco Santander S.A. In 1996, Banco Santander acquired Grupo Financiero InverMexico. In 2000, Banco Santander Central Hispano acquired Grupo Financiero Serfin of Mexico.
On 26 July 2004, Banco Santander Central Hispano announced the acquisition of Abbey National plc. Following shareholders' approval at the EGM of Abbey (95 percent voted in favour, despite vocal opposition from most of those present) and Santander, the acquisition was formally approved by the courts and Abbey became part of the Santander Group on 12 November 2004.
From Wikipedia’s article on Santander Group, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3