Banco Santander, S.A. (SAN) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2023

April 25, 2023 4:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Begona Morenes

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Banco Santander's conference call to discuss our Financial Results for the First Quarter of 2023. Just as a reminder, both the results report and presentation we will be following today are available to you on our website.

I am joined here today by our CEO, Mr. Hector Grisi; and our CFO, Mr. Jose Garcia-Cantera. Following their presentations, we will open the floor for any and all questions you may have in the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions]

With this, I will hand over to Mr. Grisi. Hector, the floor is yours.

Hector Grisi

Thank you, Begona. Good morning to everyone, and thank you for joining us.

Let me just share with you what we will focus on today. First, I will talk about our Q1 results within the context of the strategy we outlined at our Investor Day. Jose will review our financial performance in greater detail. And finally, I will conclude with final remarks.

Before we start, let me briefly remark that during the first quarter the financial system has experienced situations, we've confirmed that our strategy and unique business model are key factors that allow us to deliver solid and resilient results, even in times of market volatility as we have demonstrated today through our first quarter performance.

As we announced at the Investor Day, we have entered a new phase of shareholder value creation. We are focused on maximizing value creation, aiming for the first time ever to deliver double-digit growth in tangible net asset value per share plus dividend per share with solid capital generation and efficient capital allocation that will allow us to improve our profitability and provide more returns to our shareholders.

And we will achieve it, thanks to, first, our unique combination of local leadership and our global scale network that very few others can replicate. Our business model based on customer focus, scale and diversification, which provide us growth, cost and profitability, competitive advantages, which is underpinned by an ambitious transformation plan that is already making Santander a digital bank with branches.

Today, we delivered a solid Q1 with great progress in all our strategic objectives. TNAVps plus DPS improved 5% in the quarter. A strong capital generation increased our fully loaded CET1 ratio to 12.2%, and disciplined capital allocation improved the percentage of RWAs that create value and return on tangible equity reached an extraordinary 14.4%. In a difficult environment, we are growing customers and volumes.