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SANTANDER

Two dead, one missing after Spanish fishing boat sinks

Two people drowned and another was missing at sea after a fishing boat with 10 people on board was wrecked off Spain's northern coast on Monday, regional authorities said.

Two dead, one missing after Spanish fishing boat sinks
Photo: Pau BARRENA/AFP

Two people drowned and another was missing at sea after a fishing boat with 10 crew members on board sank along Spain’s northern coast on Monday, regional authorities said.

The seven other crew members were rescued from the Santander-based Vilaboa Uno, which went down at dawn six nautical miles from the Cantabrian coast after taking on water.

“There were 10 crew members on board. Seven were saved, one is missing and two are dead,” regional leader Miguel Angel Revilla said on Twitter.

One of the dead fishermen was Spanish and the other Ghanaian. The missing man was from Peru, said the government representative in Cantabria, Ainoa Quinones.

One of the rescued men was suffering from hypothermia, the head of the Santander marine rescue service, German Erostarbe, told public television TVE.

The Vilaboa Uno had sent out a distress signal at 04:10 am (0210 GMT) because “it was leaking and risked sinking”, he said.

The vessel went down so fast “the fishermen didn’t have time to get their lifeboat in the water” and other fishing boats who went to their rescue had to haul them out of the sea.

Erostarbe said it was not “normal” for a vessel like the Vilaboa Uno to sink so fast, especially as the weather had not been poor, and the Maritime Accidents Commission would launch an investigation.

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SANTANDER

Brexit bashes Spanish banking giant’s British earnings

Spanish banking giant Santander said Wednesday its net profit rose 4.0 percent in 2016 to €6.2 billion euros ($6.7 billion), but Brexit had knocked earnings in Britain by nearly 15 percent.

Brexit bashes Spanish banking giant's British earnings
Santander Bank's president Ana Patricia Botin looks on during a press conference announcing earnings in January 2016. Photo: AFP

The result exceeded the €6.0 billion euros expected by analysts surveyed by financial data provider Factset.

The bank attributed the gain to strong growth in fee income, which was “partially offset by the weakening of certain currencies against the euro”.

Britain had been Santander's top market for profits, but the 14.7-percent drop in profit to €1.7 billion knocked it into second place behind Brazil.

It blamed the drop on the “weakening of the pound against the euro following the outcome of the referendum on EU membership” as well as an increase in taxes.

That meant Britain accounted for 20 percent of the bank's pre-tax profit, behind recession-wracked Brazil at 21 percent.

Santander's shares jumped 4.4 percent in morning trading while Madrid's main index was up 1.65 percent.

Santander is neck and neck with France's BNP Paribas for the position as the eurozone's biggest bank by capitalisation.