Santander BanCorp
Last year the group acquired Santander Securities, the second largest broker-dealer in Puerto Rico with more than $5.7bn in assets under management. This acquisition greatly strengthened the company’s ability to generate non-interest income and fees, while adding value to its current client base by providing financial advisory and wealth management services. This represented an important step forward in satisfying the growing demand for one-stop financial services in the market and diversifying the group’s business. The bank has also restructured its balance sheet. The net interest margin was improved during the year by re-positioning the investment portfolio with higher-yielding securities and reducing the cost of deposits. With its new management tier, Santander BanCorp was able to regain profitability, increasing net income by 53.2%, improve asset quality and grow its assets to $7.4bn. The group experienced double-digit earnings growth in each of the four quarters of 2003 compared with the same previous quarters, delivering a solid turnaround in financial performance. During the year, market capitalisation almost doubled, reached more than $1bn and providing an outstanding increment in value for shareholders. At the same time, the bank encouraged its employees to improve their performance by focusing on clearly-defined goals and assigned performance bonuses based on the achievement of these goals.
