The Spanish Armada is coming: AL already captured!

The Spanish Armada is coming!! Only just a few years yet. We don't seem to have the
warriors of the calibre of Drake and Frobisher to fight back. I suppose it is nice to
have an open, transparent market but is it helpful for our economy for Banco Santander to pick up Abbey National and Alliance and Leicester, two British mortgage banks, on the cheap?

In reality, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) must be delighted that
Santander has come in with a rescue bid, just shares and no cash on the table.
If memory serves me correctly, Alliance and Leicester nearly hooked a French group
willing to pay £15 a share. But it all fizzled out unfortunately. The acting
A&L bod is reduced now to talking about "a good fit".

It is all fine and dandy having an open market but what happens if the Russians,
Chinese, foreign sovereign funds start piling in? Would it be good for UK PLC?

I think Banco Santander is a powerful bank and its UK representative performed well
during a Gordon Brown meeting with the main banks when the Santander guy spoke up
for the building societies. It looks like the building societies will have to
huddle together anyway. The Portman deal with the Nationwide showed the way.

As for the Spanish Armada, Telefonica, Iberdrola and Agbar have also acquired sizeable businesses in the United Kingdom. I think only Barclays has returned
the favour with Banco Zaragozano, although Taylor Wimpey is probably
losing its shirt in Spanish property.