Santander will contribute up to €900 million to Tresmares Capital for a private debt fund and will have a 40% share in a private equity fund worth €175 million, in addition to backing up the bank's traditional product with its balance sheet. Tresmares Capital will have a team of specialists in direct financing, private debt and venture capital, and will focus on small and medium-sized enterprises with high growth potential.

Madrid, 12 December 2019 - PRESS RELEASE
Banco Santander is taking another step in helping businesses prosper, by assisting them to become bigger, more competitive and to accelerate their growth. The bank has just finalised an agreement with a team of specialist SME managers, who have extensive experience in this segment, through which a new platform will be created to provide companies with alternatives to traditional financing, ranging from private or personalised debt to offering an equity stake in the business. 

The new platform, which will be called Tresmares Capital, will work separately under the bank's governance and have a pre-established framework of actions that will be supervised by Banco Santander's risk team. It will have a new team of professionals, specialising in private equity fund management and transaction structuring, and its aim will be to identify, select and accompany the development of those SMEs with the greatest growth potential in Spain, to help them become the big companies of the future. Tresmares Capital has used business intelligence and data analysis tools to develop a specific methodology for anticipating market trends and reaching the companies and sectors with the most growth potential (including genetics, healthy eating, nanomaterials and agricultural technology).

Banco Santander will provide a fund of up to €900 million for private debt and will have a 40% share in a private equity investment fund worth €175 million, in addition to backing up the traditional banking product with its balance sheet. These resources and the specialism of the independent management team will have a multiplier effect on the growth potential of SMEs, and a resulting positive impact on the economy and on employment in Spain.

Through this initiative, the bank will strengthen its commitment to this business segment and become the only financial institution in Spain to offer a full range of the financial products available on the market (bank loans, private debt and venture capital) to cover all of the needs of SMEs in each phase of their development. The objective is to make the service provided to companies more and more personal and to meet their specific long-term needs with flexible services and solutions, accompanying them in their growth to help them become leaders in their sectors.

Tresmares Capital will work separately, in coordination with the commercial branch network, and is being created for a very particular niche market, mainly companies with an EBITDA of between €1 million and €7 million, identified as having the greatest growth potential. This will be in addition to other initiatives run by the bank, such as its Smart Fund, a private debt fund worth €620 million that provides companies with strategic financing for projects that meet criteria of job growth, sustainability, innovation, digitalisation and job creation.

The chief executive officer of Santander Spain, Rami Aboukhair, said: “We are very excited about this project and convinced that it will have a big impact on the development of Spanish companies with high growth potential, which will give a strong boost to the new economy and the creation of jobs in the future. For the first time ever in Spain, an institution is providing SMEs with all of the alternative financing formulas that exist on the market and the best advice for meeting their specific needs at all times. This platform is going to be a supplement to our usual offer and goes beyond what is expected of a bank, which will, no doubt, strengthen our leadership as a benchmark for the new way of corporate banking.”

The Tresmares team will be headed up by Borja Pérez Arauna and Borja Oyarzábal, executives with extensive experience in the world of investment. Since 2003, they have been two of the key executives in the development of Qualitas Equity, which currently manages more €1,500 million, and have been the main drivers behind the growth of Q-Growth, a benchmark fund in the private equity segment.