Botin’s Costly Credit Suisse Hires Are Reshaping Santander (1)

When the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma recently sought to finance a casino between Oklahoma City and Tulsa, it turned to Banco Santander SA to find investors.

Spain’s biggest bank would have been an unlikely bookrunner several years ago, when it counted on one hand the leveraged loans it arranged in the US. But after a hiring spree that included dozens of former investment bankers from Credit Suisse’s Wall Street outpost, Santander has been rapidly climbing the league tables, with more than a hundred deals in the US this year already.

The new recruits and the flurry of transactions they’re reeling ...