Louis Goss
2 min read
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Santander has approached the owner of TSB about a potential takeover of the British high street bank.
The Spanish lender is one of a number of parties to have expressed interest in buying TSB from its current owner Sabadell, Sky News reported.
Sabadell, which is Spain’s fourth largest bank, confirmed earlier this week it had received multiple “expressions of interest” for TSB, which it acquired from Lloyds Bank for £1.7bn in 2015.
Santander is yet to make a formal offer and could still pull away from the bidding process.
If it does strike a deal, a takeover of TSB would help expand Santander’s UK retail banking business, which currently serves around 14m customers.
The possible expansion follows speculation that Santander could exit Britain altogether. It rejected an £11bn offer from NatWest for its own UK banking arm last month.
Ana Botin, Santander’s chief executive, told an audience at Davos in January the lender will stay in Britain “into the future” following speculation about its commitments to the country.
NatWest has been named by analysts as the most likely bidder for TSB, which traces its origins back to the founding of the Trustee Savings Bank in Dumfriesshire in 1810. TSB currently has 5m customers across the UK and a mortgage book worth more than £33bn.
Paul Thwaite, NatWest’s chief executive, last week told an audience at Goldman Sachs European Financials Conference that the bank’s management will be “very, very disciplined” about any M&A activity.
Mr Thwaite said: “Anything that we look at has to be genuinely financially compelling versus deploying capital in the business, returning it to shareholders through buybacks ... so it’s a very high financial bar.”
Barclays and HSBC have also been named as potential acquirers of TSB.
A sale of the bank has raised fears of potential job losses and branch closures. Gary Greenwood, from Shore Capital, said: “Whoever buys this, the focus would be primarily on taking out costs.”
Santander is currently pushing ahead with plans to shut 95 of its own UK high street branches this year, having previously closed 111 branches in 2021.
Santander, Sabadell and NatWest declined to comment.
