BME Admits Banco Santander's Main Bond Issuance Programme on European Capital Markets to Trading

• With the admission to trading of Banco Santander's EMTN Programme, the volume of commercial paper and bond programmes repatriated to BME in recent years will exceed €60 billion
• Admissions to trading of fixed-income securities on Spanish markets grew by 42% last year to €68 billion, according to data from the CNMV

BME's Fixed Income Market, AIAF, has admitted Banco Santander's Euro Medium Term Note (EMTN) Programme for the issuance of fixed income securities to trading. This is the entity's main bond issuance programme and it is through which Banco Santander obtains most of its financing in European capital market. This programme represents a new repatriation of fixed income securities to BME.

It is a continuous issuance programme open to the maximum volume to be issued and with which Banco Santander will be able to flexibly launch different series of ordinary senior bonds, ordinary non-preferred and subordinated debt over the next 12 months.

Santander Corporate & Investment Banking participates in this programme as Arranger, and the Dealers are Barclays, BNP Paribas, BofA Securities, Citigroup, Commerzbank, Crédit Agricole CIB, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs Bank Europe SE, HSBC, JP Morgan, Mizuho, Morgan Stanley, Natixis, Natwest, Nomura, Santander Corporate & Investment Banking, Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking, UBS Investment Bank, Unicredit and Wells Fargo Securities.

Bank of New York Mellon, London Branch, will act as the main Paying Agent for the issues carried out under the programme. Linklaters, Madrid office, has provided legal advice to the dealers and A&O Shearman, Madrid office, has advised the issuer.

Banco Santander has long-term ratings of A, stable outlook, by Fitch Ratings; A1, stable, by Moody's; A+, stable, from Standard & Poors; A High, stable, by DBRS Morningstar; AA-stable, from Scope Ratings; AA-, stable, by JCR Japan; A, stable, by EthiFinance Ratings; and A+, stable, from GBB-Rating.

"The offering prospectus has been registered today with the CNMV and the AIAF Market. In the admission to trading of the different bond tranches that will be launched under the programme, at BME, we will apply the new verification and admission to trading scheme established after the reformof the Capital Markets and Investment Services Law, which allows us to fully guarantee fixed-income issuers an agile, efficient and competitive mechanism that adjusts to their needs," highlights Gonzalo Gómez Retuerto, managing director of fixed income at BME.

As a consequence of the improvements made to the regulation of the fixed income markets by the CNMV and BME in recent years, since 2019 there have been repatriations of commercial paper and bond issuance programmes from Spanish issuers that were previously listed on the Dublin or Luxembourg stock exchanges for an amount greater than 60.000 million euros.

In addition to Banco Santander, the issuers that have repatriated their fixed-income programmes are: ENDESA (5.000 million), ICO (30.000 million euros), Redeia (1.000 million), Sacyr (350 million), CAF (250 million), AENA (3.000 million), Masmovil-Euskaltel (200 million), Prosegur Cash (400 million), CIE Automotive (400 million), Ence (200 million) and Enagás (750 million).

This repatriation of Santander's EMTN Programme confirms a trend highlighted in the latest CNMV's Quarterly Market Report, which indicated that admissions to trading of fixed-income securities on Spanish capital markets grew by 42% last year to €68 billion.

Likewise, improving the conditions for the admission of bond issues in Spain is one of the objectives included in the report prepared by the OECD for the CNMV: "Capital Market Review of Spain 2024" and the joint working groups with the industry set-up by the regulator and BME to analyze and develop the recommendations contained therein.

You can find more information about BME's fixed income markets on its website.