Santander: Seeking new rationale for cross-border retail model

Covid-19 has hit the Spanish lender particularly hard, but the pandemic could spur a longer-term strategic shift.

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Santander’s geographic spread matched with painful exactness those regions and countries hardest hit by Covid-19: Spain, the UK, Brazil and the US.

Partly because of this, its shares underperformed every other big bank in Europe over the year to its third-quarter results, falling to a 30% discount to book value.

This is a big change even from two years ago, when Santander was one of the continent’s highest-valued banks, trading at a 30% premium to its book value.

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