Banco Santander has named the head of investment banking at Swiss bank UBS as its next chief executive, putting a longstanding friend of the Spanish lender in charge.
Andrea Orcel, a member of the UBS executive committee and the president of its investment bank, will replace José Antonio Álvarez as CEO in early 2019, Santander
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said in a statement. Álvarez will become the group’s vice chair, succeeding Rodrigo Echenique, who confirmed his decision to retire from the role in June this year.
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said it will replace Orcel with Piero Novelli and Robert Karofsky, who will serve as co-presidents of its investment bank.
In an internal email sent to UBS staff, Orcel thanked colleagues for the “immense” honor of “serving this business”.
At UBS, Orcel led a radical transformation of the Swiss group’s investment bank after taking charge in 2012. In his farewell email, he wrote that the program had shifted the bank “from a business that was unfocused and lagging, absorbing too much cost while destroying value, to one that is focused and strengthened, using less capital and creating value.
“We stopped trying to be the biggest investment bank and focused on being the best,” he wrote.
Orcel praised the work of the team, crediting them with having “delivered best-in-class returns ahead of both European and US peers,” as well as having ascended to the number one slot in Institutional Investor magazine’s 2017 ranking of top global equity research firms, knocking Bank of America Merrill Lynch out of the position.
On a personal note, Orcel described working “for — and with” UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti as a tremendous experience, and concluded with a quotation:
“In the immortal words of Winnie the Pooh: ‘How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.’”
Emilio Botín, the late former executive chair of Santander, counted Orcel among his closest and most-trusted advisers. On Botín’s death in 2014, Orcel said the world had lost “one of the most important global banking leaders in a generation”.
In his email to UBS, Orcel emphasised his close relationship with Santander as a reason for his accepting the role: “Believe me when I tell you that I wouldn’t have left for anything less than a client I’ve been advising and working with for my whole career.”
Orcel advised Santander on its acquisition of Abbey National in 2004, a deal that established the Spanish lender’s push into UK retail banking. He also advised on the acquisition of Dutch bank ABN Amro by Santander, Royal Bank of Scotland and Fortis amid the financial crisis.
He updated FN with his thoughts on Brexit, fintech and Mifid II in September last year.
Ana Botín, who succeeded her father as executive chair of Santander, said Orcel will help Santander to “build the best retail and commercial bank, as well as a global digital platform”.
She added: “Andrea has worked closely with us for the past two decades in the development and execution of our strategy, and understands and is aligned with the Santander culture.”
Orcel worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch until joining UBS in 2012. Prior to joining Merrill Lynch in 1992, he worked for Goldman Sachs and the Boston Consulting Group.
In a statement from Santander, Orcel said: “The financial services’ sector cultural and business transformation continues at an accelerated pace with increasing headwinds and disruption. Rather than fight those challenges, winning organizations embrace them, are energized by them and turn them to their advantage to catapult themselves forward building long lasting competitive advantage.”
This story originally appeared on Financial News
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