The integration of the brokerage business of Santander Securities with the operations of the Santander Biuro Maklerskie brokerage house

Rymarz Zdort advised Santander Bank Polska S.A. in connection with the integration of the brokerage business of Santander Securities S.A. with the operations of the Santander Biuro Maklerskie brokerage house – a separate organisational unit of Santander Bank Polska.

The demerger of Santander Securities took place on 8 November 2019, the day the company was struck off the National Court Register. The demerger involved the transfer of Santander Securities’ entire brokerage business to Santander Bank Polska, and the remaining operations of Santander Securities were transferred to Santander Finanse sp. z o.o., another member of the Santander Group. The demerger of Santander Securities took place almost a year after the registration of the demerger of Deutsche Bank Polska S.A., which involved the acquisition of Deutsche Bank’s business by Santander Bank Polska. As a result of the demerger, Santander Bank Polska acquired 100% of the shares in the brokerage house DB Securities S.A., which was then integrated into the Santander Group and had its name changed to Santander Securities S.A. Up until the demerger, the Santander Group conducted brokerage activity in Poland through Santander Bank Polska and Santander Securities. The purpose of the demerger of Santander Securities is to integrate and unify investment activity within a single entity, i.e. Santander Bank Polska, and thus streamline and improve the efficiency of these operations within the Santander Group.

“We are very happy to have been able to cooperate with Santander Bank Polska again and we would like to thank them for inviting us to work on another successful project. This was another in a series of transactions handled by Rymarz Zdort where brokerage operations were integrated into the structures of a bank. We carried out the first such process, together with Lukasz Gasinski, and Jacek Zawadzki, in 2014 for Bank Zachodni WBK, and the transaction then set a precedent in the Polish market. Since then we have advised on similar projects for mBank and Bank Pekao, and now for Santander Bank Polska”– commented Katarzyna Lukaszewicz, advocate.

Rymarz Zdort’s advice included corporate, regulatory, and tax issues. The work of Rymarz Zdort was supervised by Dr Lukasz Gasinski a corporate department partner and head of the regulatory practice. Day-to-day work was handled by advocate Katarzyna Lukaszewicz and advocate trainee Anna Aranowska. Advice on tax issues was provided by Robert Krasnodebski, attorney-at-law, partner, and head of the tax department, with the support of Marek Kanczew, attorney-at-law and tax advisor, and advocate trainee Franciszek Dewille.