The Santander Group has announced that, in an effort to save around €200 million euros, it plans to axe around 1,900 jobs - 8% of the total workforce - from its three UK businesses - Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley.

Compulsory redundancies are not being ruled out and trade unions are said to be concerned by the news though they have been reassured that the Carlton Park and Bootle head offices are not at risk, and that the branch network will remain largely intact.

Antonio Horta Osorio, who is the chief executive of Santander's UK operation, told the BBC yesterday that: "Today's announcement shows we are on track to fulfil the commitment we made at the time of the Alliance & Leicester acquisition to grow our UK business whilst ensuring we meet our cost-saving targets."

Santander posts 5.5% profit growth
By: thinkSPAIN
Wednesday, October 29, 2008

The Santander Group seems to be weathering the financial crisis as it has just posted third quarter net profits, excluding capital gains, of €6,935 million euros, up 5.5% on last year.

Santander director, Alfredo Sáenz, said yesterday that the company is ready to face, what he described as, this "post-crisis" phase in a "very stable" position with capital ratios above 6%, generic forecasts worth more than €6,000 million, quality assets, a diversified business, "comfortable" liquidity, and "very high" synergy levels.

Mr Sáenz also confirmed that it is expected that negotiations to sell the Banco de Venezuela back to the country's government will conclude next month.

Work to integrate the newly acquired Banco Real in Brazil, the Alliance & Leicester and the Bradford & Bingley in the UK, and the RBS' small German business, continues to progress smoothly "with minimal operational risk."

Notwithstanding, it is planned to offload between €20,000-€30,000 million of toxic assets in the British market before the end of next year, two years earlier than the original stated deadline.

The group will also sell toxic assets worth €10,000 million owned by the group's newest acquisition, US bank Sovereign, though Mr Sáenz did not confirm the deadline.

Describing the company's third quarter results as "excellent, whichever way you look at them, especially bearing in mind what is going on around us," Mr Sáez also pointed out that they are better than the results for the period so far published by any of their competitors.