Santander - wrong country - FT.com "Botín, Emilio Botín" may not have quite the ring of James Bond's tagline. But the duo would get along famously in the elegant casino city of Santander, where Mr Botín heads the bank of the same name. Like a gambler, Santander has had mixed fortunes this week. First, its UK unit said "basta" to Royal Bank of Scotland's slow-moving branch sale. Enough indeed, given that Accenture says it would have taken until mid-2014 to complete. And now Standard & Poor's has cut Santander's credit rating and that of eight other Spanish lenders after last week's sovereign downgrade. Even so, the bank remains one notch above Spain's own BBB-rating. Is there a buy signal in that? Santander differs from the Spanish pack. At the June half-year, nearly nine-tenths of its net profit came from outside Spain and the eurozone produced only a quarter of profits. Sure, investors could build a diversified portfolio of banks to match Santander's spread but they would not get the economies of scale. And each unit is independently capitalised. A core tier one capital ratio (above 12 per cent) in the UK is higher than domestic peers," for example. And the bank's structure is designed to give it flexibility in each market, as shown by the $4bn-plus it raised from its Mexican listing. The UK unit will be listed in time, albeit without the scale the RBS accounts would have brought. Unlike others though, it is expanding net small business lending in the UK. Throw in the group's pre-provision profit record, cost control, a bad loan ratio that trails local averages and it has appeal. Santander's shares have returned 8.4 per cent this year, or half the FTSE Eurofirst 300 banks index, but trade at 1.2 times tangible book value. Stop thinking of it as a Spanish bank and that is not so steep. If only its head office was where its business is - elsewhere. You win some, you lose some.