2015-11-26 12:22:27
Foreign subsidiaries are proving a headache for big Spanish banks
Nov 21st 2015 | Madrid
DURING the financial crisis, it looked like a stroke of genius. Huge foreign operations helped succour Spain s two biggest banks, Santander and BBVA. Last year Santander boasted that it was one of the few big international banks not to have suffered a single quarterly loss throughout the crisis. But diversification cuts both ways: turmoil in emerging markets is now sapping profits at Santander and BBVA just as their home market recovers.
Less than 30 years ago, Santander was a smallish Spanish retail bank. Now it is a titan, operating in ten core countries, including emerging markets such as Brazil and mature ones such as Britain. BBVA, too, boasts a big retail-banking operation in multiple countries.
The problem is that at least one of each bank s biggest markets always seems to be in trouble. This time, the weak link for Santander is Brazil, which accounts for about a fifth of its profits. The country has sunk into recession one reason why Santander s shares have fallen by about 20% since mid-July. BBVA makes about 70% of its profits in emerging markets, including 40% from Mexico, where BBVA owns Bancomer, the country s biggest bank. The Mexican economy is not as wobbly as Brazil s, but estimates of growth have dropped over the past year along with the oil price and the Mexican peso.
Moreover, although scale does bring benefits, managing such far-flung empires is costly. Analysts at Exane BNP Paribas, a broker, estimate that currency hedging, among other costs attributed to Santander s corporate centre , eat up around a quarter of the profits made by its various units. BBVA, for its part, hedges about 30-50% of earnings a year in advance.
Even so, BBVA posted its biggest-ever quarterly loss last month thanks mainly to gyrating currencies. In July it raised its stake in Garanti, Turkey s second-biggest private bank, from 25% to almost 40%. The additional slice came relatively cheaply, owing to the depreciation of the lira. But accounting rules obliged BBVA to write down its initial investment by 1.8 billion ($2 billion) because of the lira s fall.
Sliding emerging-market currencies are one reason why BBVA s capital buffer dropped to 9.8% in September. Santander and BBVA are now among the most weakly capitalised banks in Europe, according to analysts at Barclays, a British rival.
Spanish banks have weathered worse emerging-market crashes, including Argentina s collapse in 2001. Brazil s troubles have been building slowly, giving Santander plenty of time to prepare for a deep recession. It has spent much of the past two years restructuring its Brazilian business and reducing exposure to riskier consumer loans. Moreover, despite recent upheaval, the long-term promise of emerging markets remains intact. As incomes rise and the middle class grows, demand for credit and other banking products should swell in places like Brazil, Mexico and Turkey.
That is just as well. Though the Spanish economy is growing strongly by European standards, lending is not. Firms and households are still trying to fix their finances after bingeing on debt, so the overall stock of loans is falling. Ultra-low interest rates hinder the job of making money. Caixabank, Spain s third-biggest bank by market value, has warned that competition to make loans is leading to an unsustainable squeeze on margins. Diversification may soon be lauded again.