Editor’s note: This article was first published in September 2010, when Botín was still chairman. He died in 2014 and was succeeded by his daughter Ana Botín. The 2009 profit of 8,940 million euros, “more than 23 countries” and the analysts’ advice to buy Santander shares are 2010 statements.
Continuing our series on great executives, today we dive into the story of Emilio Botín, current chairman of Banco Santander.
Banco Santander was founded in Cantabria in 1857, but it never stopped being a small local bank: the bank we all know today as SANTANDER didn’t take shape until Emilio Botín took the reins, barely 20 years ago. What was Emilio Botín’s business vision and strategy? Let’s take a look.
Emilio is the grandson, son and nephew of bankers, and the brother and father of bankers too, so in his family “the bank always wins”.
Banco Santander took more than 70 years to open an office outside Cantabria, and after the death of its creator in 1986, the chairmanship passed to his own son, Emilio Botín, who took over a bank earning profits of less than 100 million euros.
In 2009, Banco Santander, led by Mr Botín, closed a year of deep recession with profits of 8,940 million euros.
People close to him say that Emilio Botín knows no holidays or office hours and asks the same of his team, because daily hard work has always been part of his success. He works and thinks while others rest. He sometimes holds meetings on Sunday afternoons to get a head start on the competition on Monday morning.
His principles are very simple: ambition, coolness, determination, speed and daily work.
Emilio Botín’s strategy
This is where every entrepreneur and business owner can draw their own conclusions and pick up some great ideas for standing out from the competition.
See also: Probably the hardest decision a manager has to face
Emilio Botín knew he didn’t have a unique business and wasn’t among Spain’s top banks, so he needed to “shout” that he was here and ready to put up a fight.
In 1989 Banco Santander made the front page of every newspaper by starting a “bank war”, something unthinkable until then. It launched its high-interest supercuenta (super account), breaking the non-aggression pact among the big banks.
At a time when interest rates were very high but accounts paid around 0.35%–0.40%, Emilio shook up the market with one of the biggest deposit-gathering campaigns in history, offering returns of up to 11%.
From then on, Banco Santander’s investments were unstoppable. New branches opened all over Spain and the bank began expanding abroad.
By 1993, Banco Santander was already one of Spain’s leading banks, and its expansion showed no sign of slowing. It turned to a sales and management system unknown until then: it invented independent banking agents. An innovative system that may not benefit customers or the agents themselves, but certainly benefits Banco Santander.
In 1994, Banco Santander had grown so strong that it bid for Banesto and acquired it. Banco Santander was now number one in Spain.
In 1999, Banco Santander merged with Banco Central Hispano, forcing Emilio Botín to share the chairmanship with Amusátegui. BSCH, Banco Santander Central Hispano, was born. In the merger, Banco Santander’s shareholders received more than 65% of the shares.
In 2001, Emilio Botín got rid of Amusátegui and faced trial for misappropriation, a trial from which he walked away without a conviction, and so the bank went back to being plain SANTANDER (without the CH).
Since then, Emilio Botín has never stopped making acquisitions and entering new foreign markets. Today the bank operates in more than 23 countries, and Mr Botín inspires so much confidence that stock market analysts, who currently advise against investing in the banking sector, still recommend investing in Banco Santander.
Today, Banco Santander is the fourth largest bank in the world by revenue.
We’ll leave you with a phrase of Emilio Botín’s, which translates roughly as: business is a game, and in the end the best one wins.
Further reading
- How Steve Jobs got started: a story of motivation
- Donald Trump and the entrepreneur’s mindset
- The only real secrets to getting rich
- The qualities of a good leader for your business
Featured image: Dilma Rousseff from Brasil, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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