Deals
Santander Rescues Popular as Spain Real Estate Loans Sink Lender
- Popular stock and bond holders lose about 3.3 billion euros
- Santander will raise 7 billion euros in rights issue for deal
Banco Popular Taken Over by Santander
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In what may prove one of the final acts in Spain’s banking crisis, Banco Santander SA stepped in to take over Banco Popular Espanol SA before the bank collapsed under a mountain of bad property loans.
Santander will tap shareholders for about 7 billion euros ($7.9 billion) to shore up Popular’s balance sheet after acquiring the bank for 1 euro in a deal brokered by European regulators, according to a filing on Wednesday. The deal imposes losses of about 3.3 billion euros on Popular stock and bondholders and serves as the first real test of European rules to deal with failing banks.