Acquisition of 318 Royal Bank of Scotland branches now expected to be completed in first quarter of 2012
Santander's takeover of 318 Royal Bank of Scotland branches is not expected to be completed until the first quarter of 2012 despite hopes the deal would be done by the end of this year.
The integration is one of the most complex yet undertaken as it involves branches being spun out of RBS, which was forced to sell off the outlets by the EU as the price for its £54bn taxpayer bailout, rather than a traditional takeover.
When the deal was announced in August 2010, RBS said it expected the sale of 311 RBS-branded branches in England and Wales, seven NatWest-branded branches in Scotland and the retail and small business customers associated with those branches to be completed "by December 2011".
This completion date is now thought to be more likely in the early part of 2012 as both banks work through the complicated process of transferring customers between the two operations. Santander is experienced in this area, having taken over Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley in addition to the Abbey National acquisition that announced the arrival of the Spanish bank on the UK high street.
RBS recreated its Williams & Glyn's brand to package up the branches that were being sold, but Santander is expected to put its own red signage and logo on them.
When Santander clinched the deal, the Spanish bank was run by António Horta-Osório, who now finds himself needing to sell branches as the chief executive of bailed-out Lloyds Banking Group. Lloyds must sell 600 branches to satisfy EU conditions on state aid and one of his first steps on taking the helm in March was to begin the process.
RBS said it expected the takeover to be completed in the first quarter of next year, while Santander pointed out that it had said it expected to take up to 18 months, until February 2012, for the deal to be completed.