Andrea Orcel

Andrea Orcel is Europe’s most famous investment banker, a suave, brash and fabulously wealthy dealmaker who counts many of the Continent’s chief executives as his longtime clients. Last fall, he agreed to become one of those C.E.O.s. He accepted a job running the day-to-day operations of Banco Santander, a sprawling European and American lender whose ruling Botín family is one of Mr. Orcel’s oldest patrons. On Tuesday, that deal unraveled — doomed by an extraordinary public spat over who would pay Mr. Orcel the more than $50 million in deferred compensation he was owed by his previous employer, the Swiss bank UBS. A native of Rome, Mr. Orcel spent decades building a long list of boardroom contacts, especially in Southern Europe. He orchestrated some of the world’s biggest corporate transactions. One of his closest relationships was with Emilio Botín, the Santander patriarch and Ms. Botín’s father. Mr. Orcel spent more than 20 years as one of Mr. Botín’s most trusted advisers as he built Santander into a global bank with acquisitions in Spain, elsewhere in Europe and in the United States. Mr. Botín died in 2014. When Santander announced it was hiring Mr. Orcel last September, analysts said the move could augur another round of acquisitions by the Spanish bank. UBS, however, was not thrilled to lose a top executive. The Swiss bank enforced a provision in Mr. Orcel’s contract that required him to take a six-month break, known as gardening leave, before defecting to a rival business.