Awards for Excellence 2017
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| Group executive chairman Ana Botín. For Santander to be improving in all of its main countries is a truly remarkable achievement |
Over the last year Latin American politics has bubbled over to dominate the region’s economies. Venezuela has been brought close to the edge of collapse by a dysfunctional populist regime that clings to power through the continuing loyalty of its military. The failure of Venezuela’s neighbours to produce a regional response to president Nicolas Maduro’s increasingly repressive regime reflects widespread problems of their own.
Brazil finally emerged from its biggest ever recession, only to face falling back into decline thanks to the political scandal overwhelming president Michel Temer. Argentina’s return to economic orthodoxy is creating the inevitable pain of transformation but, with key mid-term elections in October, it seems that foreign investors are waiting for signs that president Mauricio Macri’s project cannot be reversed. Investment waited nervously on the sidelines, until Argentina came with a surprise 100-year bond in June, generating an astonishing $10 billion of demand for its $2.75