The fees offered to sub-underwriters working on Santander’s €7.2bn ($9.3bn) capital increase were cut hours before the launch of the deal, after demand from firms wanting to work on the deal allowed the lead banks to slash them.

Santander is paying bookrunners Bank of America, Credit Suisse and Merrill Lynch a fee of 2.5%, equating to a total fee pool of €180m. Originally the banks offered sub-underwriters a fee of 2%, however when the final terms came through this had been cut back to 1.75%.