Earnings Labs

Banco Santander, S.A. (SAN)

Q4 2011 Earnings Call· Tue, Jan 31, 2012

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Transcript

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

Good day. As always, we will be taking the questions; first from the Web, and if we have time, we will be also taking incoming phone calls. We have broken down by subject, by areas, strategy and regulation. There are questions regarding...

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Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The Q&A session starts now. (Operator Instructions) Thank you.

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: And the second part of the question is, do we believe that 55.0% of assets is sufficient? And how much more will be called for in the case of substandard loans?”

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: We have wanted, as Santander, we have wanted to take a step forward. We’ve considered an extraordinary provision, which is what we’ve seen in these accounts that we’ve discussed. This has been explained generically, so that when the new rules are finally implemented, we will be specifically be going into the concept, the ones that are relevant in accordance with the legislation, as I say. And we will be probably needing new amounts in 2012, additional amounts in 2012 in order to be covered. We don’t know for sure, because we don’t know what the legislation is going to mandate. But we’ll have to think about increases, perhaps in substandard. We’ll have to think about risk. But I repeat, unfortunately, we don’t know what those requisites are going to be. Now, in order to be able to respond in 2012, as mentioned, we have some capital gains which have already been achieved. That’s Colombia. In the case of Colombia, that perhaps could go, and at this point this is what we’re thinking. This is what we’re thinking, because this is what we’re going to have to respond with. As I say, this has not been accounted for yet. It’s not been included yet for legal and accounting reasons, but it will be once the operation is fine-tuned. We have other capital gains in mind. I am not going into the details right now for obvious reasons, because this is confidential information. And what we’ve done on the other, we have sufficient funds to actually take on those further requisites. And should we need more, should those capital gains not be sufficient, well, we would look at the bottom line. The budget for 2012 specifies that there will be improvements in the coverage of NPLs and substandard, so this is, if you will, already included in our kind of standard budget. So, we have Colombia. We have other capital gains as I said before, which are coming along very nicely. And we will be providing information when the time comes. So, as I say, perhaps we would have to look at our P&L as we did in the year 2011 and the year that’s just wrapped up. So, this is what we are contemplating in the face of new legislation which, as I said before, we don’t have specific information about. Antonio Ramirez, Keefe wants to know whether this would hinder us from holding on to that 9% EBA capital or 10% as an objective?

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: And as for the second question, I guess, it depends, depending on how the new regulations take shape, these provisions may perhaps facilitate – well, these new requirements promote more concentration, more mergers and acquisitions. Well, I can’t really answer that, because it depends on so many factors. And the third question I’ve forgotten, our role in such a consolidation process. Well, we have always said, and I’ll say it again today, that we look at all opportunities. We did analyze Dacam. We are now studying the new NIM, and we will continue to do so. When opportunities come up, our responsibility is to analyze those opportunities and make the right choice in each case, and that’s what we’re going to do.

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: Yes. I am told by José Antonio Álvarez that there might be some confusion here. There are two scrip dividends that we are now planning for 2012. So, again, we continue with the same payout policy in all aspects. Same shareholder return policy.

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: Well, basically, now, because of the rather difficult economic context in Continental Europe and also in the UK and also in the U.S., where what we call the mature markets are probably at their lowest contribution. And the emerging markets, in relative terms, are at their peak contribution. But starting in 2013, I think it may continue during 2012, although there will be some improvement in mature markets, but especially starting in 2013, we expect that the percentage contribution of these mature markets will increase.

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: And the breakdown of the positive extraordinary revenue, we can give you more details from Investor Relations. But basically, in the EUR893 million, there’s maybe EUR300 million and EUR400 million which are intangibles, and there’s another EUR200 million which includes wages, pensions, and so on, or severance packages, rather, and so on. And so, another one for that great debt of about EUR75 million. And the other is for the Iberdrola, Generali and so on equity, which is about EUR400 million. But if you want to see the detailed breakdown, we will give it to you. We have more details at Investor Relations.

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: As for IPOs, we’re not planning any in the year. What we’ve done in the U.S. has been a brilliant operation at Santander Consumer. And those that we had considered or talked about in the past, such as the UK IPO, current market conditions do not make it advisable in the near future. So, we’ll leave it for later on. And in the U.S., we have no intention. I guess you’re asking whether we were planning an IPO for Santander Consumer U.S.? No, we have no such plans.

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: And as for cost, Fuji Yuki from Daiwa and Ignacio Ulargui from BBVA are asking whether we can give some forecast, some guidance on cost increases. Do we plan to keep investing in areas like Latin America? Do we expect them to keep growing as they have been? Can we give a bit more detail about what we think on our costs and returns medium term?

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: On the contrary, in the mature markets where the environment will – on the one hand, of course, we have a much more consolidated position, more complete business, more optimized business. So, their costs will be flat or falling slightly, for example, Spain and Portugal and some other countries under the Santander Consumer Finance footprint. Overall, the costs will rise slightly in 2012. It’s in our budget, because we will continue to invest in practically 60% of our units which are still growing strongly.

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: And Britta Schmidt Autonomous Research is asking about NPLs for the group and for Spain. Do we maintain the same guidance? What do we think it will do in the future?

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: As for Spain and Portugal, NPLs, in my opinion, in 2012 will continue to rise slightly. How much, it’s hard to say. We will, I think, get up to 6%. We’re at 5.8% right now. We closed 2011 at 5.8%. So, we’ll probably, in 2012, be above 6%, possibly.

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: No, in 2011 overall, where balances rose, but in 2012, we do think there will be a fall in the outstanding balance and foreclosed assets. So, sales will be greater, significantly greater than net entries. So, fewer entries and more sales – a lot more sales. And so, that’s going to – and there, of course, the higher provisions are going to help, as we just explained when the question was asked earlier.

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: But that was really where it was going to peak, and thereafter, we would not see further rises in NPLs, which would remain flat or even intending to fall medium term. And that’s actually what’s been happening. Brazil has been following the trend that we had predicted. I don’t remember whether it was at the results presentation in October or at the Investor Day in September. But it was around then that we talked about our forecast for NPL in Brazil, and that’s, in fact, what has happened.

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: Moving on to financial management, there’s quite a lot of questions about LTRO. Question from Antonio Ramirez from Keefe, Rohith Chandra from Barclays, Britta Schmidt from Autonomous, Ignacio Ulargui from BBVA, Fabio Mostacci from Ahorro Corporación, Andrea Filtri from Mediobanca and Frederic Teschner from Natixis and Santiago from Exane. Let’s see if I can summarize the basic idea; that is, how much have we used in December? How much do we expect to grow in February? How will we be using those funds? And then, can we elaborate on the cost of repos, authorizations for buying debt, liquidity injections and the impact on the financial sector and on Spain? So a long list of topics, all connected.

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: As of February, we haven’t decided yet. Our liquidity position, as we showed, is still very comfortable. Deleveraging, as I’ve showed you, EUR24 billion in two years; Banesto, EUR7 billion in two years; Portugal, EUR4 billion. And if you think of the current context, and as the CEO explained in the presentation, for liquidity, we don’t really need to issue in the year to improve our liquidity. So, if anything, it would be just as a buffer more than for liquidity position. As for the use of those funds, I’ve already explained. This whole discussion about whether this comes up again and again, about this is what’s really having a negative impact on sovereign debt. And well, that’s still planned in repo. You don’t need to go to the ECB and it’s actually a lot cheaper than with the ECB right now. If you look at the markets, public debt is now being financed at between 0.35% and 0.55%. The ECB, as you know, costs 1%. So, per se, that’s not necessary. And the impact on the financial sector, I think it has a positive impact in terms of confidence. And additional insurance has the most positive impact on confidence, which is really what the market needs right now. And so, that’s been very positive.

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: So, if my memory doesn’t fail me, that was it. I don’t know whether there was something in Chile also. So in January, group units in accordance with their plan have looked at a certain number – have looked at a specific number. The year now, well, we’re not really targeting anything in Spain or Portugal which is not to say that we don’t take advantage of opportunities that might surface. If funding costs become more reasonable, well, we might think of just that. In other countries, if we look at the UK last year, I think it was 25. This year, we’re not thinking about anything more than about half that. And consumer – and it depends on the production, securitizations, different countries, each one of them looking at local markets, usually. So, we might be there talking about, say, a total of 6 billion to 7 billion in consumer financing securitization. A little bit from Chile, a little bit from Brazil. That’s what I would say is on the book.

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: About EUR50 billion, I don’t know, EUR53 billion, EUR55 billion is public or sovereign debt in the countries where we have a presence. In Spain, it’s basically the same as last year, EUR25 billion to EUR30 billion. This depends on expectations, what will be happening, a little bit less, a little bit more. We follow that. We do what we’ve done in Portugal, EUR1.6 billion, EUR1.7 billion; Brazil, again, EUR12 billion, EUR13 billion; Mexico, about EUR3 billion; and Chile about EUR3 billion. We can’t really talk about major changes in terms of the sizes of these portfolios. I think that when we met on Investors Day, we talked about mark-to-market which was minus EUR2 billion. Because the rates have changed, that’s improved above zero, maybe a little bit above zero. But that would be the only major change that I would want to make a reference to over the past few months.

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: Nevertheless, the activity is not going to be as risk, assets, liabilities, especially in assets – no, low in assets, although in terms of funds and so on, well, it’s not that important if you think about – of the rates – the rate structure in place now and for the upcoming year. So, I think that they’ll offset each other. Provisions will continue to be high in 2012, because evolution of credit quality and of NPLs, as we said before, is not going to vary. It’s going to perhaps grow a little bit in 2012. So, again, we’ll be seeing that those provisions will not be less. We know that generics are not as relevant as they were in the past. So, 2012, in our budget for 2012, the results were retail banking in Spain are very, very similar to the results achieved in 2011. So, we see that it’s a little bit of both. Some things are going to be better. Others are not going to be that good. Margin spreads, but less activity and provisions growing. The cost, fine, because retail costs in Spain are going to continue to decrease, to grow negatively, minus 1%, minus 2%. But all of that, at the end of the day, is just going to give us very similar results to the ones that we made in 2011.

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: As to the loss of a hedge, well, yes, that will be felt. This is what we call the margin compression. It’s the depletion, if you will, of the hedge, both current accounts. I think that, that is going to have an adverse effect, a negative effect on the numbers. That is as far as business – traditional business goes, savings and mortgages. That’s for the total business. When we talk about the margin compression plus the regulatory impact, those new stringent demands, this is going to, perhaps, affect us in the bottom part – in the upper part, I’m sorry. Then, when we talk about the franchise, well, it’s slow – evolution is slow. It always is, isn’t it, in this kind of a business. We seem to be quickening in terms of corporate, at a rate which is not huge. But the bank is increasing, and the bank is growing, and the bank is doing its utmost in this SME. This, of course, will be further bolstered when the UK joins us. Well, that’s how we call the Royal Bank of Scotland’s branches. And that will happen probably towards the end of 2012, unless there are delays. We are seeing some minor delays now, so it would be either end of 2012, beginning of 2013. It’s not going to affect the numbers for 2012. It will affect the numbers in 2013. So, 2012 is going to be a year that we can best define as complex. A little bit delicate for the UK in that constant perimeter because, I repeat, I don’t think that those RBS, Royal Bank of Scotland, branches are going to be immediately added on to the account in 2012.

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: Well, thank you very much. I think that all of the questions that were posed have been responded to. And if you feel that, that is not the case, please do get in touch with us, and we will be delighted to take your calls and questions. Thank you.