BBVA SA, Spanish financial group with its strength lying in the traditional business of retail banking, asset management, insurance, private banking, and wholesale banking. Headquarters are in Madrid.
BBVA is the result of the 1999 merger of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya (BBV) and Banco Argentaria. BBV was formed in 1988 from the merger between Banco de Bilbao (founded 1857) and Banco de Vizcaya (1901). Banco Argentaria was established in 1998 as a federated bank after the amalgamation of Banco Hipotecario (1872), Banco Exterior (1929), and Caja Postal (1909).
BBVA has investments in Spanish industrial companies, especially energy companies. In addition to its operations in Spain, BBVA has a strong international presence—for example, in Latin America. In the early 21st century BBVA continued its global expansion, engaging in a series of acquisitions, particularly in the United States and Asia. It subsequently began integrating its retail banks under the BBVA brand to present a uniform image and customer experience.
ITT Corporation, former American telecommunications company that grew into a successful conglomerate corporation before its breakup in 1995.
ITT was founded in 1920 by Sosthenes Behn and his brother Hernand Behn as a holding company for their Caribbean-based telephone and telegraph companies; it received its name in imitation of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T). Throughout the 1920s ITT expanded into the still-undeveloped European telephone market, obtaining the concession for telephone service in Spain in 1924. In 1925 the company purchased AT&T’s large foreign manufacturing subsidiary, International Western Electric, and renamed it ITT Standard Electric Corporation; this move made ITT a major telecommunications manufacturer in 11 countries.
Sosthenes Behn was succeeded by Harold Sydney Geneen, who ran the company from 1959 to 1978. Under Geneen, ITT became an aggressive conglomerate and underwent a second period of rapid expansion, acquiring 275 other companies and increasing its annual sales nearly 20-fold. Among its purchases were the Sheraton Corporation, one of the largest American hotel chains, in 1968, and one of the nation’s leading insurance firms, the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, in 1970.
Under the leadership of Rand Araskog from 1980, however, ITT sold off many of the companies it had acquired earlier under Geneen, including its Continental Baking subsidiary. In 1987 it divested its telecommunications businesses by forming a joint venture, Alcatel N.V., with France’s Cie. Générale d’Electricité, which held a controlling interest in the venture. In 1995 it sold its financial-service businesses and acquired Madison Square Garden in New York City and Caesars World, Inc., a large casino operator. Later that year ITT split itself into three separate companies: ITT Hartford Group Inc., consisting of insurance companies; ITT Industries Inc., defense-electronics and automotive-parts companies; and a ‘new’ ITT Corporation consisting of the Sheraton Hotel chain, Caesars World, and Madison Square Garden. In 1998 this new ITT Corporation was acquired by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.
debt
debt, something owed. Anyone having borrowed money or goods from another owes a debt and is under obligation to return the goods or repay the money, usually with interest. For governments, the need to borrow in order to finance a deficit budget has led to the development of various forms of national debt. Crippling levels of student loan debt have frequently made headlines as politicians debate solutions—from forgiving such debt to allowing such debt to be discharged through bankruptcy. See also debtor and creditor and usury.
Learn about good debt and bad debt.