Ana Patricia Botín, the 38-year-old daughter and widely acclaimed heir apparent to Banco Santander's chairman Emilio Botín, came down with a bump a month after the announcement of the mega-merger between the family-run bank and Banco Central Hispano (BCH).
BSCH, as the merged bank will call itself, dropped a bombshell with its first press release stating that Ana Patricia had "relinquished all executive responsibilities within the group", while retaining a seat on the bank's new board. Under the new management structure she had been given the job of head of global investment banking, in keeping with her early training at JP Morgan in Madrid and New York. It did not go unnoticed that she had been quietly relieved of her role as head of the bank's Latin American business, which last year incurred losses of nearly £60 million in Peru and Mexico.
The surprise resignation came a day after El País, the leading Spanish newspaper, published an extensive profile of Ana Patricia suggesting that she remained the favoured candidate to head the new bank after her father's retirement in 2006. Banking sources in Madrid say this did not sit at all well with Angel Corcóstegui, BCH's chief executive who assumes the same role at the merged entity.