Banco Santander, the Spanish parent to Sovereign Bancorp, has decided to change its New York Stock Exchange ticker symbol from “STD” to “SAN,” effective at market close on June 14, 2012.
The new ticker symbol is less likely to be mocked. Santander wasn't doing itself any favors with the ticker symbol of STD. I've simply referred to this on Twitter as an "unfortunate" ticker symbol. (Get your mind out of the gutter and stop making jokes about the European debt "contagion.")
That will all change on Thursday June 14. Santander (STD) will begin trading instead as SAN. The bank announced the shift back in April. The move was made possible after Santander's Chilean unit Banco Santander Chile (BSAC) said it was giving up the SAN symbol in favor of BSAC.
In its release two months ago, Santander said that the change to SAN "aligns the use of ticker symbols within the Santander Group." Santander already trades as SAN in Madrid. A spokesman for the bank in Madrid added on Tuesday that the ticker symbol change was done to avoid causing confusion from having the Chilean unit trade on the NYSE with the same symbol as Banco Santander in Spain.
Still, this won't end all the confusion. Santander has been listed as STD in the U.S. for awhile. One could argue that it's more confusing to get rid of a somewhat entrenched symbol. What's more, Santander's stock on the London Stock Exchange trades under the symbol "BNC." So it's not as if the U.S. shares were the only ones that are trading sans SAN.
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