MADRID // Santander, the euro zone's biggest bank, says profit for this year will fall short of forecasts as it takes a bigger charge than expected for bad Spanish assets under new Bank of Spain accounting rules.
The aggressively acquisitive bank said it did not expect to make any further purchases and would work to consolidate recent buys after a multibillion-euro spending spree since the start of the summer.
The bank reported a 9.8 per cent fall in nine-month net profit after a one-off hit of €472 million (Dh2.4 billion) for the provisions.
The move complies with Spanish rules enforced after a property crash and the nation's worst recession in half a century, but the provision was greater than Santander's estimate at the end of July of about €400m.
Shares fell 0.8 per cent against a little-changed Spanish blue chip index and a 0.6 per cent rise in the SX7P index of European banks. The stock fell as low as €8.985, its lowest in almost a month.
Santander had previously said it expected net profit for this year to be in line with the €8.9bn it achieved last year.
"Underlying trends are quite solid but the numbers look weak at first glance and are not a positive catalyst," said Arturo de Frias, an analyst at Evolution Securities, who rates the stock "buy".
Net interest income of €21.9bn was in line with estimates.
Under new rules that came into effect on September 30, the Bank of Spain has cut the time over which banks can fully provide for estimated losses on non-performing loans. It has also required a further 10 per cent write-down on properties held for more than two years.
The home market in Spain, including the contribution from the majority-owned unit Banesto, now accounts for 23 per cent of Santander's net profit, less than the 25 per cent brought in by Britain and 34 per cent from Brazil.
The biog
Name: Marie Byrne
Nationality: Irish
Favourite film: The Shawshank Redemption
Book: Seagull by Jonathan Livingston
Life lesson: A person is not old until regret takes the place of their dreams
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950