Santander Talking To M&T About Possible Deal -Vice Chairman

17th Jun 2010 11:26

SANTANDER, Spain (Dow Jones)--Banco Santander SA (STD) is talking to M&T Bank Corp. (MTB) about a potential deal with its U.S. unit Sovereign Bank, the Spanish bank's vice chairman Matias Rodriguez Inciarte said Thursday. Inciarte, who was speaking at a conference in Santander, northern Spain, didn't elaborate on the nature of the talks. Sovereign and M&T held advanced merger discussions earlier this year but those talks fell apart, the Wall Street Journal reported in May. A deal would catapult Santander into the upper ranks of U.S. banking, at a time when many European banks are seen as too weak to make big acquisitions. A 22.5% stake in M&T was recently been put into play, after M&T's largest shareholder--Allied Irish Banks PLC (AIB)--announced plans to divest the holdings to shore up its own flagging capital base. Inciarte also confirmed that Santander had made a binding bid for the 318 U.K. branches put up for sale by the Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBS). He added that the RBS assets "fit like a glove" with Santander's structure in the U.K. -By Pablo Dominguez and Christopher Bjork, EFE Dow Jones; +34 914518269; [email protected] (END) Dow Jones Newswires June 17, 2010 06:26 ET (10:26 GMT)