Feb 10, 2026
3 min read
Under the chairmanship of Ana Botín, Santander's biggest merger and acquisition activity will begin at the JPMorgan Chase conference in New York in 2023.
- If Webster accepts the competing offer, Santander will receive $490 million
- Banco Santander: what to expect in the stock market after the acquisition of Webster Bank
- The US will be Santander's second biggest profit driver
While many European banks have a negative history in the US, the Spanish organization believes its operations with Webster Financial are different.
Most of Santander's mergers and acquisitions under Anna Bottin's presidency began at the 2023 JPMorgan Chase conference in New York, where Spanish manager John Siula, director of US-based Webster Financial, met.
The two have established a good relationship and are kept in touch.At the end of last year, Ciulla Botín came up with an ambitious proposal: a comprehensive purchase.
Nine weeks after formal negotiations began, the acquisition of the largest US bank by a European continent was completed.Santander last week announced the $ 12.2 billion acquisition of Webster, codenamed "Project Wayne".The move ends Bottin's year-long mergers and acquisitions campaign, repositioning Santander by strengthening its presence in the United Kingdom and the United States.To achieve the market that it is struggling to grow.
"If you're not in America, you can't aspire to be a world bank," Botin said of the operation."Europe needs global companies and banks, and we need to compete successfully in the United States," he added.
The deal, which will catapult Santander into the top 10 commercial and retail banks by assets in the United States, defies a series of European setbacks in the country.BNP Paribas, HSBC and BBVA have exited US retail banking in recent years, after struggling with small-scale franchises that generated low returns and distracted from more profitable regions.
“Some investors will be concerned about the risk of empire building,” said KBW analyst Hugo Cruz.Mediobanca's Andrea Filtri said that while the deal was rational, it was also "perhaps a whim."Santander shares fell as much as 4% following the announcement.
Santander has established the middle of the United States of America from buying Sovereign Bank in 2008, at the height of money.In the same time the Spanish income is found in a great deal of money and best.
But as of early 2020, U.S. small businesses are struggling and under regulatory scrutiny: The group's U.S. consumer business has a dubious reputation as the first institution to suspend central bank stress tests for the third year in a row.Botín has refused to step down and has acquired Amherst Pierpont Securities, the principal distributor of US government bonds, for $ 600 million by 2021.
From there, he led the major expansion of Santander's banking and investment business (CIB), inspired by the collapse of Credit Suisse, which allowed him to lead a group of financial experts. CIB generated revenues of € 8.5 billion last year, up from € 5.7 billion in 2021. America is now Nintendo CIB's largest market and accounts for 20%of last year's income.
Still, the senior investment banker, who praised Botin's vision and decision in taking on Webster, cautioned that a final decision on Santander's progress on CIB has yet to be made."We haven't seen them through the down cycle yet."
The bank's auto financing activities, which focus on the subprime market, are also starting to show signs of strain.
At the end of 2025, Santander's US subsidiary has $13.6 billion in auto loans, about a quarter of its loan portfolio, according to records compiled by BankRegData.However, approximately 3% of these loans are repaid for at least 30 days, a higher number than many of its competitors.
Despite recent growth, Santander has only about 4.5 million customers in the U.S., and the bank's executives believe the business lacks scale, according to people familiar with its strategy.Executives began looking for new targets, including Citizens Financial and M&T Bank, before the opportunity to buy Webster came up, a source familiar with the matter said.
Through Webster, Santander will acquire commercial and consumer banking with $84 billion, 5 million customers and approximately 200 branches.Webster's presence in U.S. commercial banking, where Santander has a smaller presence, is also a key attraction, Boughton said.
The Spanish group is focusing on its American subsidiaries in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York, in addition to getting a more balanced sheet and improving its deposit mix with cheaper financing, a person involved in the operation said.
The two banks have significant overlap in the Northeast, allowing Santander to save costs by consolidating branches and office functions.
But it also dictates Santander's acquisition of Webster in addition to other US banking operations.While there has been a wave of consolidation among regional lenders, most of the action is concentrated in South America, where states like Florida and Texas are showing faster growth than the rest of the country.
Botín's M&A push has been boosted by a higher share price, which has risen 140% since the start of 2025, as well as €6.8 billion in proceeds from the sale of its Polish business last year.
The Spanish bank is now the most valuable in the eurozone, with a market capitalization of 158 billion euros.According to Bloomberg data, it's dealing with approximately 1.5 times the book value of its assets.
A senior investment banker testified that "This time last year, Santander was trading below book value. Now it's well above that value, and that's what helped Botin do these operations."However, it is not clear whether a wave of acquisitions is the best way to invest the bank's capital, and the deal surprised the market.
Borja Ramirez Segura, an analyst at Citigroup, said: "Investors may have preferred Santander to use its excess capital to further cut costs and deliver dividends for shareholders."
However, KBW's Cruz said shareholders should have "a little more faith in Santander and view mergers and acquisitions as an opportunity rather than a risk."
After acquiring Webster for 2.65 billion pounds from the British financial institution TSB last July, Botín announced that he would not seek a new operation for at least three years.Santander focuses on the potentially difficult task of combining the two simultaneously.
The execution will determine whether Botín's bet will successfully reshape Santander or join the long list of European banks that have misjudged the US market.
"Webster is the final piece of the puzzle," said one person who works closely with Botín.
