Sant Uk.10te% Regulatory News (SAN)

13 Oct 2008 07:50



Banco Santander injects capital into Abbey to further strengthen UK subsidiary

On Sunday 12th October, the Executive Committee of Banco Santander S.A. ("Santander") agreed to inject capital into its UK subsidiary, Abbey National plc ("Abbey"), fulfilling its agreed commitment to the UK government's banking support scheme announced on Wednesday 8th October.

Before the impact of the capital injection, the company estimates that the combined UK subsidiaries (Abbey and Alliance & Leicester plc) would have a Tier 1 ratio of c.8% at the end of 2008. The amount of capital to be invested is £1billion, in line with the commitment made at the time of the acquisition of Alliance & Leicester plc that completed on Friday 10th October. The capital injection will improve the capital ratios by c.1.25%, and will be in place Monday 13th October.

As previously announced, Santander does not intend to use the UK government's recapitalisation initiative with government funds, but strongly supports efforts to stabilise the operation of financial markets as shown by providing c. £1 billion of funding, at maturities between 3 and 6 months, to other UK banks last week.

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