Santander Likely to Sell US Car-Financing Business for Up to $6 Billion

 

Santander, the biggest bank in Spain, has announced they are considering selling off a U.S. car-financing company in response to Spain’s faltering economy. The car-financing company would be sold via a U.S. stock market listing sometime in early 2013 the company says.

At the moment, Santander is one of the few Spanish banks that are not facing a massive crisis as much of its business is not in Spain but overseas. However, they still want to make sure they can continue to weather what looks like another few years of a dismal Spanish economy, and selling some of their overseas businesses is a way to do that.

The car-financing company based in Texas could be worth as much as $6 billion — a nice sum for Santander to be able to funnel back into their main banking business.

Santander, however, will probably still require some financial support from the EU as they have been stuck with around 185 billion euros worth of bad real estate investments.