Smooth transition at the top of Bankinter. The current CEO, María Dolores Dancausa, will become the non-executive president of the entity, replacing Pedro Guerrero, following his retirement. Her successor will be Gloria Ortiz, who until now was general director of commercial banking and member of the management committee. These changes will be effective at the entity’s next shareholder meeting which will take place in March 2024.
The election of Ortiz, a person from the house, will ensure the continuity of Bankinter’s business model, as stated by the analysts consulted and this is also interpreted by the market, since his shares ended yesterday’s session with an increase of 0 .95% up to 5.93 euros. Nor has it led to any changes in the opinion of the analysts about their perspectives on the bank and proof of this is that they have reiterated their recommendations the day after these appointments became known. Precisely, 68% maintain their ‘buy’ recommendation with a revaluation percentage of 36.4% to 8.05 euros.
Dancausa leaves the day-to-day management of the bank as a leader in profitability within Spanish banking. The ROTE (return on tangible capital) stood at 18.2% at the end of September, while the ROE exceeds 17%. Ortiz will maintain its focus on companies, with a more financially sophisticated type of client, which may mean that the remuneration of deposits will be higher than the rest of its peers next year. Renta 4 analyst Nuria Álvarez recalls that the new CEO knows well how the entity works.
In fact, Ortiz will have to follow the path set by Dancausa. That is, betting on an increasingly diversified business model, with a greater contribution from Portugal (in the first 9 months of the year it already accounted for 10% of the Gross Margin, two points more than at the end of 2022) and the banking segment. . corporate to the detriment of the consumer finance business. Nor are changes expected in these profitability levels with double-digit percentages since the rate environment will be favorable to this.
For his part, Javier Cabrera, XTB analyst, explains that among the challenges that Ortiz will have to face is a possible cut in interest rates. “At the moment, a rate drop is expected in 2024, which will harm its portfolio of loans at variable rates and the new loans granted,” says the analyst. However, an easing of interest rates will ease the pressure on defaults, which were expected to increase over the coming years.
In this sense, the new CEO will have the difficult task of continuing with the credit quality that the bank has, balancing the growth in the credit portfolio and its low delinquency rate. “If we finally head to a stage with positive interest rates, it is expected that the company will be able to grow at a good pace, surpassing the performance obtained in the previous decade.” In this regard, we must not forget that the bank has earned 681 million euros until September, despite the payment of the extraordinary tax on the sector, almost 60% more than a year ago, and more than the entire year 2022. For the next few years, some Analysts already point out that the bank’s reported profits reach 750 million euros.
A catalyst, the dividend.
One of the main catalysts for the action would be the approval of an extraordinary dividend, explains Álvarez, who recalls that Bankinter has excess capital for this. In this regard, the Renta 4 analyst estimates that it would be around 1,000 million euros. For now, this Wednesday the bank raised the dividend to 0.14 euros, compared to the expected 0.11 euros.
In that sense, Ortiz could opt more for the cash distribution, which has a better reception for the action, better than the repurchase of shares. “We consider that, despite having higher multiples vs comparables, the poor performance of the value in the year is not justified (-26.8% relative to the Ibex) to which we must add that it is trading at a discount of 30 % vs average PER of the last 5 years”, clarifies Álvarez.
