“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
— Benjamin Franklin
Projects
Family Firm - Global Business: The Rise of Banco Santander
Professor Mauro F. Guillén
October 25, 2005
ABSTRACT
Spain's Santander is the only family controlled bank among the world's top ten financial institutions, and has full-fledged retail operations in over thirty countries in the Americas, Europe and Africa. The rapid rise to global prominence of a family-controlled and managed bank originating from a rather marginal provincial town in a then relatively backward country raises a number of questions. How does a banking family manage to grow its business into a Fortune Global 200 firm without losing control? What capabilities have made it possible for a firm in a mature industry to better its rivals in so many different countries around the world? What aspects of family management have made it possible to grow so fast via acquisition? What are the issues surrounding managerial succession? This research project seeks to answer these questions by analyzing Santander in the context of an industry undergoing rapid technological and competitive changes since the mid 1980s.