Javier San Félix, new Head of the Retail Bank in Santander UK / Photo: www.santander.com. Javier San Félix Appointed Head of the Retail Bank in Santander UK
Banco Santander’s Board today approved a series of management and organisational changes which further simplify the Group’s corporate structure and enhance its internal governance: in the Board of Directors, Ignacio Benjumea, General Secretary and Secretary of the Board, will leave his executive role and will become an external Board Director. Juan Rodriguez Inciarte, has resigned from the Board for personal reasons and will leave his role as Senior Executive Vice-President in December this year.
In the Senior Management space, Jaime Pérez Renovales, Senior Executive Vice-President, has been appointed General Secretary and Secretary of the Board effective September 1st. He will lead the newly-created Division of General Secretariat and Human Resources, which will integrate the areas of Legal and Tax and all the areas which were under the former division of Human Resources, Organisation and Costs. Pérez Renovales is a highly accomplished professional who is returning to the Group following a period of 3.5 years in the public sector. Jesús Cepeda, Senior Executive Vice-President and until now Head of Human Resources, Organisation and Costs, will leave his role on September 1st.
Rami Aboukhair, Senior Executive Vice-President of the bank with extensive expertise in retail banking in Spain and the UK, has been appointed country head for Santander Spain, replacing Enrique García Candelas, who will become Vice Chairman of Santander Totta (Portugal) following his great work in Spain.
Javier San Félix has been appointed Head of the Retail Bank in Santander UK, reporting to Nathan Bostock, CEO of Santander UK. Ángel Rivera, Senior Executive Vice-President, has been appointed Head of the Retail and Commercial Banking Division.
In the last few weeks, the following Senior Executive Vice Presidents have also resigned from their roles: Remigio Iglesias (Head of Recoveries); Juan Andrés Yanes who will be replaced as Head of Strategic Alliances by Juan Manuel San Román; Luis Moreno (Head of Private Banking); and José María Espí (Director of Internal Control and Risk Assessment).
The Board of Directors, Santander Spain
Two years ago all the Group’s businesses serving customers in Spain were consolidated under Santander Spain to establish a clear separation between the functions of this unit and the corporate center. Today they are announcing a further step in the process of strengthening Santander Spain by creating a Board to oversee it. This will bring its governance structure in line with the Group model which exists in other country subsidiaries. This Board will monitor and supervise the activities of Santander Spain, including its policies and strategies, risk, human resources and senior management appointments as well as a number of control and monitoring tasks.
The Board of Directors of Banco Santander has appointed Rodrigo Echenique, Vice Chairman of the bank, in the additional role as Chairman of the Board of Santander Spain. The Board of Santander Spain will have at least one third independent directors with the Country Head of Spain (Rami Aboukhair) as a permanent member. The Group has also appointed to the Board of Santander Spain, Ignacio Benjumea, Angel Rivera (Head of the Retail and Commercial Bank Division), José María Nus (Chief Risk Officer), José García Cantera (CFO), Carlos Barrabés, Javier Monzón and Gonzalo Alonso-Tejuca, the last three of whom are independent directors.
According to the bank, the new corporate structure will facilitate work and increase both competitiveness and focus on adding value to the Group’s core local country businesses; and the number of divisions has been reduced from 15 to 10 in the last six months and with today’s changes the number of senior executive vice-presidents is reduced by 7 (or 23%). “We are enhancing the Group’s internal governance with the creation of a board for Santander Spain”. Ana Botín, Santander’s Group Executive Chairman, said: “These changes complete the management team which José Antonio Álvarez and I began restructuring in 2014. To achieve our vision to be the best retail and commercial bank for our people and customers, and to continue to generate sustainable growth we must simplify and make our organisation more competitive”.
“Our goal in making these changes is to have the best qualified professionals in the right roles and progress towards becoming a bank that is Simple Personal and Fair for our people, customers, shareholders and communities”, Ana Botín said.
Josep Oliu, Chairman of Sabadell. UK Authorities Give Green Light to Acquisition of TSB by Sabadell Group
The UK authorities (PRA and FCA) have approved the bid by the Sabadell Group, announced on 17 April 2015, to acquire all of the shares of TSB Banking Group plc which is based in Britain.
With this acquisition, the Sabadell Group is taking a leap forward in its strategy of expanding into other countries, which is one of the pillars of its Triple strategic plan for 2014-2016 (Transformation, Profitability and Internationalization). After the TSB acquisition, 22% of Sabadell’s assets will be located outside Spain, compared with 5% at present.
Josep Oliu, Chairman of Sabadell, says: “Today marks the beginning of a major project. This is a milestone that enables us to enter a market with vast opportunities. We do so in partnership with a well-positioned challenger bank with a prestigious brand backed by a long tradition.
“Furthermore, TSB has a highly professional management team which is successfully delivering its business plan and which is committed to growing TSB further still as part of the Sabadell Group. TSB will enable us to increase our international footprint and diversify our business activities. It’s a major opportunity.”
Paul Pester, CEO of TSB, says: “The deal with the Sabadell Group is a major vote of confidence in TSB. With the extra firepower and fresh perspective of Sabadell, TSB will be stronger and even better placed to build on its position as Britain’s challenger bank. Being part of the Sabadell Group will help TSB bring more competition to the UK market more quickly and help us break the stranglehold the ‘Big Five’ banks have had for far too long.
“TSB and Sabadell have similar values. Both have heritages that date back to the nineteenth century and proud histories of focusing on and supporting hard working local people and businesses.”
The experience accumulated by the Sabadell Group in integrating numerous successful bank acquisitions to date and its extensive knowledge of customer service, particularly in personal and SME banking, will play a key role in generating value in this new phase.
The deal, worth 1.7 billion pounds (2.35 billion euros), to be paid for entirely in cash has a neutral impact on the Sabadell Group’s CET1 ratio. Sabadell believes that Lloyds Banking Group’s contribution of up to 450 million pounds (about 622 million euro) is expected to be more than sufficient to meet the implementation costs of the IT migration onto Sabadell’s platform.
Further, the Group estimates technology synergies of approximately 160 million pounds before taxes (about 221 million euro) in the third full year after completion of the Offer.
. T. Rowe Price Expands Relationship Management Team for Spain and Portugal
T. Rowe Price, the $772.7bn global independent asset manager, has appointed Pedro Masoliver to its client management team in Spain. He will report to Alfonso del Moral the Headof Relationship Management for Spain and Portugal in support of the firm’s drive to increase its share of the intermediary markets in Europe.
Mr. Masoliver joins T. Rowe Price from GBS Finanzas, a multi-family office where he was an Analyst. Prior to that, he was a Senior Fund Analyst at Allfunds Bank, investing consultant department between 2007 and 2012. This new role will see him focus on relationship management for clients in Spain and Portugal as well as supporting the sales drive in both countries.
Alfonso Del Moral, Head of Relationship Management for Spain and Portugal said “Pedro Masoliver is a great addition to the team we are building to support our growth. The experience he brings from the sell-side and as an Analyst will add to our ability to anticipated and service the needs of our clients. I look forward to working closely with him as we develop our business in Spain and Portugal.”
CC-BY-SA-2.0, FlickrPhoto: Kevin Jaako. Robeco Introduces Multi-Factor Credit Fund
Robeco announces the launch of a multi-factor credit fund. With Robeco Global Multi-Factor Credits, factor investing is brought to credit markets, allowing investors to benefit from similar factors to those that have proven successful in equity markets including low-risk, value and momentum.
Robeco Global Multi-Factor Credits, avalaible in Latam & US- offshore, offers a diversified and balanced exposure to investment grade corporate bonds that score well on these factors, and will have 150-200 names in the portfolio. The fund aims to generate higher returns with a market-like risk profile. Although the fund mainly invests in investment grade credits, it can hold a maximum of 10 percent in BB to benefit from the attractive characteristics of fallen angels and rising stars. Robeco Global Multi-Factor Credits is targeted at experienced investors looking for style- diversification in a balanced portfolio.
Fund Management
The fund will be managed by Robeco’s Credit Team. The fund’s portfolio manager is Patrick Houweling, who joined Robeco in 2003. Houweling has also been managing Robeco’s conservative credits strategy since 2012, which exploits the low-risk anomaly in credit markets. In an academic study published last year, Houweling and his colleague Jeroen van Zundert illustrated that factor strategies can also be attractive in credit markets. Next to the three factors low-risk, value and momentum applied in Robeco’s equity factor strategies, the credit strategy also includes a size factor. Amongst others, size captures a liquidity effect that is more present and important in less liquid asset classes like corporate bonds.
Patrick Houweling: “At Robeco, we have been closely studying the possibilities of bringing our factor investing offering beyond the traditional equity markets. I am delighted that we have put theory into practice by introducing this factor investing fund to credit investors. This fund is driven by our proprietary quantitative multi-factor model, which offers balanced exposure to the low-risk, value and momentum factors.”
CC-BY-SA-2.0, FlickrPhoto: Mike Mozart. Santander Holdings USA Strengthens Board With New Independent Directors
Santander Holdings USA, Inc. (SHUSA) announced a broad reorganization of its Board of Directors, including the appointment of four new independent SHUSA directors and the creation of the position of Lead Independent Director.
The new independent SHUSA directors will be Alan Fishman, Chairman of Ladder Capital; Thomas S. Johnson, former Chairman and CEO of GreenPoint Capital; Catherine Keating, CEO of Commonfund; and Richard Spillenkothen, former head of banking supervision at the Federal Reserve Board and former director of Deloitte & Touche LLP.
SHUSA said Thomas S. Johnson would become the Company’s first Lead Independent Director, a newly created position. The Lead Independent Director will chair board meetings in the absence of the Chairman, convene meetings of the independent directors and carry out the annual performance review of the Chairman.
SHUSA is the U.S. holding company of the Santander Group and parent company of fully-owned Santander Bank, N.A. and 59.03%-owned Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc. (SCUSA).
T. Timothy Ryan, Jr., non-executive Chairman of SHUSA, said: “These changes are among the many steps we are taking to reinforce best practices and meet our standards of excellence. Our new independent directors bring to Santander deep expertise in regulatory matters and experience in large U.S. financial institutions. All have managed banking or consumer finance businesses. Their appointments and the naming of Tom Johnson as the lead independent director will further strengthen governance and oversight of our businesses.”
He added: “On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Gonzalo de las Heras, John P. Hamill, Marian Heard, Manuel Soto, and Alberto Sanchez for the service they have given to Santander through their board service in recent years.”
Javier Maldonado, Senior Executive Vice President and head of coordination and control of regulatory projects of Banco Santander, S.A. of Spain, also joined the Board of SHUSA.
Following these appointments, the SHUSA Board will have 14 members, seven of whom are independent, with two vacancies. The new SHUSA directors were also appointed to the Board of Directors of Santander Bank, N.A.
Also joining the Board of Santander Bank are Steve Pateman, head of UK banking at Santander UK; Henri-Paul Rousseau, Vice-Chairman, Power Corporation of Canada; Victor Matarranz, Senior Executive Vice President and Head of Group Strategy, Banco Santander S.A.; and Juan Olaizola, Chief Operating Officer, Santander UK. Mr. Rousseau is an independent director.
Alan Fishman will be Lead Independent Director of Santander Bank.
CC-BY-SA-2.0, FlickrPhoto: Chris Potter. Variations on the Scarcity Theme
UBS Global Asset Management and BB Gestão de Recursos DTVM S.A (“BB DTVM”), the asset management arm of Banco do Brasil (“BB”), today announced a joint collaboration to provide Brazilian institutional investors the opportunity to invest in global sustainable equities.
“We believe that UBS’s Global Sustainable Equity strategy is an interesting offering to meet this growing demand.”
Global investing is increasingly capturing the attention of institutional investors in Brazil. The local pension fund system, with close to R$ 674 billion in total assets, is currently allocated almost entirely to domestic investments but beginning to invest internationally. In addition, sustainable investing is becoming a key focus for investors, with 17 leading Brazilian pension funds now signatories to the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Investment.
To meet this growing demand, BB DTVM will launch a registered feeder fund (in compliance with CMN Resolution 3,792) giving investors access to the UBS Global Sustainable Equity portfolio. GSE seeks to maximize total return with a sustainable investment approach, using a unique positive screening process that combines material sustainability factors and fundamental valuation analysis. Managed by UBS Global AM’s Sustainable Equities team, GSE has a track record that dates back to 1997 and ranks2 in the top quartile of Global All Cap Core Equity managers (eVestment Alliance) over 1, 3 and 5 years.
UBS Global AM has committed USD 20 million (approximately R$62 million) to launch the local fund.
Photo: Ines Hegedus-Garcia. How Big is the US Offshore Market?
Latin America has more than a trillion dollars in offshore money, these figures were published recently in “Global Wealth 2015: Winning the Game Growth”, the Boston Consulting Group’s latest global wealth report, according to which Switzerland is no longer the main destination for this money, having been displaced by the US and the Panama-Caribbean region, each holding 29% of the offshore money with Latin American origin. Switzerland, which until last year was the main destination of this wealth, currently receives 27% of the money leaving Latin America.
In total, the United States holds almost 300 billion dollars of wealth from residents in Latin America, a figure that is growing compared to previous years. In fact, in 2014 the offshore wealth originating in Latin America has been one of the main sources of growth in the world, generating 100 billion dollars of new money which has left their home countries, mainly looking for stability in their destination offshore centers, due to the political instability in some of the countries in which that money originated.
In correspondence, Latin America is the number one source of all the offshore money which reaches the United States, representing 41% of the total. United States holds more than 700 billion dollars of offshore money, so that 41% brings us back to approximately that round figure of 300 billion dollars.
Miami, New York, Houston, and San Diego are, in this order, the four major US offshore centers which serve the owners of this Latin American wealth.
Other good news is that Boston Consulting Group expects this growth to continue. For the next five years, United States is, after Singapore and Hong Kong, the offshore wealth destination with higher growth prospects globally.
CC-BY-SA-2.0, FlickrPhoto: Edward Dalmulder. Fresh Volatility But Renewed Confidence
Fresh volatility on bond and equity markets and- toa lesser extent- in currency trading is not all that surprising. Market volatility had been abnormally low for months as investors piled into the same strategies dictated by the ECB’s massive quantitative easing programme. Two events disrupted the calm; higher-than-expected inflation in Europe which officially marked a sharp reduction in deflation risk (and therefore visibility on the ECB’s QE campaign) and concerns over default risk in Greece or Grexit as talks got bogged clown.
Concerning fixed income, faced with bond market volatility, investors had been reassured by the ECB’s flexibility following comments from Benoít Coeuré that the bank could take advantage of swings to accelerate bond buying. But then Mario Draghi said investors would have to get used to volatility, thereby reducing hopes the ECB would try torein in market pressure. As a result, yields on the 10-year German Bund jumped 80bp between April 20 and June 9 or enough to undermine European equity markets.
At the end of April, we moved to an underweight position on European government bonds as they had become extraordinarily expensive. But the extent of the subsequent fall has led us to turn neutral. Even after this correction, European bonds are still expensive but it seems a done dealthat the ECB will stick to its quantitative easing calendar until its official end date of September 2016. This means that with negative yields on some bond market segments, there is justification for bonds to remain expensive. And generally speaking, we believe it is still too early to position portfolios for the end of quantitative easing. Moreover, we would not be surprised to see other ECB interventions ifyields should rise further as the bank wants to keep real rates neutral to negative to shore up the recovery. Against this backdrop, it makes more sense to remain neutral.
On the equity side, if the bond market correction has in fact come to an end, equity markets should rally. In so far as credit spreads remained rather stable as yields rose, the risk of equity markets being contaminated needs to be put into perspective. Earnings expectations are trending higher in the eurozone and in Japan with fewer and fewer downward revisions in the US, UK and emerging countries. And after the weak spell at the beginning of 2015, the US economy is likely to rev up again, thereby facilitating the incipient recovery in Europe and Japan. We expect upward earnings revisions to continue and help equity markets move higher. We had underweighted UK equities ahead of the elections there but a certain degree of stability has returned and we have turned neutral on the market. The thorny issue of the referendum on whether to stay in the European Union will return to centre stage next year but it is still too earlyto position portfolios to reflect this risk. All together, these developments have led us to increase European equity ratings and equity ratings as a whole.
As well as the return of Russo-Ukrainian tensions, political risk is still acute in Greece where talks are dragging on ahead of sizeable repayments to the IMF scheduled for the end of June. We are sticking with our core scenario that a favorable solution will be found as all parties have an interest in reachingan agreement.
Column by EdRAM. Benjamin Melman is Head of Asset Allocation and Sovereign Debt in Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management (France).
The data, comments and analysis in this document reflect the opinion of Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management (France) and its affiliates with respect to the markets, their trends, regulation and tax issues, on the basis of its own expertise, economic analysis and information currently known to it. However, they shall not under any circumstances be construed as comprising any sort of undertaking or guarantee whatsoever on the part of Edmond deRothschild Asset Management (France). Any investment involves specific risks. Main investment risks: risk of capital loss, equity risk, credit risk and fixed income risk. Any investment involves specific risks. All potential investors must take prior measures and specialist advice in order to analyse the risks and establish his or her own opinion independent of Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management (France) in order to determine the relevance of such an investment to his or her own financial situation.
Special warning for Belgium: Please note that this communication is intended for institutional or professional investors only, as mentioned in the Belgian Law of July 20th, 2004 on certain forms of collective management of investment portfolios This notice is also intended only for investors who are not consumers as described in the Belgian Law of July 14th, 1991 on trade practices and information and protection of consumers.
State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), the asset management arm of State Street Corporation, has announced the appointment of Greg Ehret as president.
Ehret is in charge of SSGA’s client facing, product and marketing, operations and infrastructure teams and will lead the execution of the non-investment aspects of strategy.
Ehret joined SSGA 20 years ago. He has held several executive positions in operations, sales and product development, including co-head of the firm’s exchange traded fund (ETF) business.
Ehret has led SSGA’s business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) from July 2008 to September 2012 including the purchase of the Bank of Ireland Asset Management and managed State Street’s European ETF franchise.
SSGA has $2.4trn of assets under management as of 31 March 2015.
CC-BY-SA-2.0, FlickrPhoto: Loremo
. Energy Efficiency: Global Growth Opportunities
The Henderson Global Growth strategy, which reached its 5-year anniversary in May 2015, seeks to identify key themes driving world change. One of these is greater energy efficiency. This has been a key theme within the portfolio of the Henderson Gartmore Global Growth Fund for a number of years with holdings well placed to benefit from further government initiatives and technological advances.
The quest for greater energy efficiency is being driven by a combination of factors. Firstly, from an environmental perspective, global temperatures are rising and energy related CO2 emissions are a material contributor to this change. Warmer temperatures are linked to higher incidence of extreme weather, which in turn has a disruptive effect on global food production and water supply.
Energy independence
Secondly, carbon fuels are ultimately a finite reserve and intensity of consumption must be curbed while alternative energy sources are developed for mass use. Additionally, energy independence has become a key topic for governments wishing to insulate their economies from fluctuating commodity prices and supply restraints. Confronting these issues, governments in countries covering 80% of global passenger vehicle sales have set stringent targets for fuel economy or emissions.
Increasing fuel efficiency
In the US, for example, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has mandated that the average passenger car’s fuel economy must increase from around 35 miles per gallon (mpg) today to 56mpg by 2025, and other regions and countries are following suit as shown in the chart below.
We believe that in order to meet these government mandated standards, improving the efficiency of the internal combustion engine will be a key consideration for automotive manufacturers for at least the next 10 years.
Smarter engineering
The US Department of Energy estimates that only 18-25% of the energy in gasoline is converted to powering the wheels in the average internal combustion engine powered car, so there is clearly room for gains to be made through smarter engineering.
We invest in companies that manufacture parts and sell technologies which increase the efficiency of the internal combustion engine, and are growing the value of their parts within the car. Stocks currently held related to this theme include Continental, a Germany-based automotive supplier, Valeo, a multinational automotive supplier based in France, along with US auto component manufacturers Delphi and BorgWarner.
Many of the improvements being made by these companies are typically based on proprietary technology, generated through superior engineering and provide the companies with a long-term competitive advantage, which protects their high market shares. The table below shows the positive effects from using various types of car technology on fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.
We believe the market has undervalued the pace and sustainability of the growth which these auto component companies possess, creating an attractive investment proposition today for our funds.
For example, Continental, which the fund has a weighting in of approximately 1.7%, has strong market positions across its powertrain division with a broad portfolio of engine parts from turbochargers to start-stop technology, geared towards increasing fuel efficiency and reducing emissions. Based on our investment criteria, Continental is attractive on a number of measures:
Continental also has one of the market-leading tyre brands and currently trades on 14 times 2016 estimated earnings*. With a rapidly improving balance sheet and strong cash flow generation, investors in Continental have benefited from recent capital growth, as shown in the chart below, as well as a healthy return of cash. We see further upside based on the company’s high exposure to the secular growth areas of carbon dioxide reduction, active safety and in-vehicle infotainment (systems in automobiles that deliver entertainment and information content).
