Finland

Denmark I Estonia I Finland I Iceland I Latvia I Lithuania I Norway I Sweden

BEST BANK : Sampo Bank BEST DEBT HOUSE: Barclays Capital BEST M&A HOUSE: JPMorgan

Among fixed-income investors in Europe, Sampo Bank is probably best known as the institution that put Finland on the map of covered bond issuers in 2005, with the highly successful debut transaction from Sampo Housing Bank in September the first jumbo deal from a Finnish borrower. But as well as enjoying the publicity that arose from its activities as a pioneer in the covered bond market, Finland’s third-largest bank had a strong year in its core business in 2005, with pre-tax profits up by 21%, cost-income ratio falling and return on equity rising. Strong growth in retail and corporate lending in Finland more than compensated for the pressure on loan margins, with housing loan growth of 26% in the domestic market outpacing the national market growth of 17%, helping Sampo to increase its share of the Finnish residential mortgage market from 14.3% to 15.5%. Overseas, Sampo opened an office in Stockholm in 2005 and continued to build its franchise in the Baltic republics – most notably in Lithuania.

In a generally quiet market, Barclays Capital built up an impressively diversified portfolio of mandates from Finnish borrowers in 2005/06, all of which were successfully executed. As it has done in a number of European jurisdictions, it was a lead arranger of the first jumbo covered bond to emerge from Finland, the highly successful Sampo transaction in September 2005. It also had a top-line position on the Finnish government’s blow-out syndicated facility in May 2006 and had a hand in a number of corporate transactions. Those included a rare cross-over bond for M-Real and a Stora Enso €500 million transaction, which Barclays Capital led with Citigroup, and which generated an order book of €1.5 billion, even after pricing was tightened from its original range.

Following the highly successful Neste Oil IPO in April 2005 – full credit for which was given in last year’s awards – it has been a very quiet year in the Finnish primary equity market. Although the Fortum share price has performed well since its IPO in June 2005, the €770 million issue via Citigroup was priced at the bottom of its range and hardly warrants an award in isolation. There is therefore no award for best equity house in Finland.

JPMorgan advised on 10 M&A transactions involving Finnish companies in 2005/06, giving it a market share of close to 40%. But all activity in the Finnish M&A market since 2002 was eclipsed by the recent €2.1 billion acquisition by OKO Bank of Pohjola, Finland’s second-largest insurance company. JPMorgan’s performance as financial adviser to OKO Bank on that transaction fortified its position as the clear leader in the Finnish M&A universe in 2005/06.