Best bank in Nordics & Baltics
Nordea has long been recognised for having the most broadly diversified franchise across the entire Nordic region (bar Iceland). As S&P comments in a recent update, Nordea’s 2013 results “confirmed the group’s sustainable, broad revenue base, supported by its large business model diversified by geography and business lines.”
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| Christian Clausen, Nordea. The bank wins for its sustainable, broad revenue base, supported by a diversity of geography and business lines |
Last year, Nordea attracted 90,000 new relationship customers, built on its SME franchise, and helped large and multinational companies raise some €86 billion in the corporate bond and syndicated loan markets. Today, the bank reports that more than 90% of the biggest companies in the Nordic region have a core relationship with Nordea. With €77.3 billion under management, Nordea has also retained its position as the largest private bank in the Nordic region. In 2013, its private-banking customer base grew by 3% to 109,000, while in the bank’s broader wealth management business, assets under management rose by 7% to a new all-time record of €233 billion.
Nordea’s financial profile was strengthened last year, with the bank maintaining its AA- rating and ticking or half-ticking all of the boxes in its 2013-2015 financial plan. The core tier-1 (CET1) ratio rose by 180 basis points to 14.9%, risk-weighted assets (RWAs) fell by €13 billion (€7.8 billion in the Nordic region), costs were flat for the 13th consecutive quarter and loan losses declined by 17%. Return on equity declined from 11.6% in 2012 to 11% in 2013, but remains on track towards the bank’s target of 13%.
Best investment bank in Nordics & Baltics
There were a number of contenders for Nordic investment bank of the year, with Morgan Stanley enjoying an especially good year in equities and SEB coming a close second to Goldman Sachs in M&A. But it is Nordea’s presence across all areas of the Nordic capital market, once again, that wins it this year’s award.
In equities Nordea had a relatively subdued year, leading 15 deals. That was more than Morgan Stanley, which topped the Dealogic volume table with 14, but Nordea was fourth in equity capital markets, with a share of a little over 8%. Banner deals in 2013 included the healthily over-subscribed SKr3.7 billion ($557 million) IPO of Sanitec in December, which helped to kick-start the primary equity market in Sweden. Earlier in the year, Nordea had also helped to re-open the Danish market, jointly co-ordinating and bookrunning the IPO of beauty retailer Matas, which was the first IPO in Denmark since 2010.
In M&A, too, Nordea’s overall position by volume is modest, but it advised on 12 deals, more than any other bank bar SEB, including the merger of Finland’s Rautaruukki and SSAB in January 2014. This €1.9 billion deal, creating a highly competitive player in the global steel sector, was one of the largest mergers ever in Finland.
It was in the region’s debt market, however, that Nordea built up an impressive lead over the competition, leading 237 deals worth just under $22 billion. That was comfortably more than the next three banks – Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan – combined, which together led fewer than 200. Nordea’s pan-Nordic credentials in the region’s debt market were exemplified in September 2013, when it acted as sole coordinator and joint global bookrunner on an SKr1.5 billion high-yield bond for Scandinavian Airlines (SAS). Priced at the low end of its range and heavily oversubscribed, the SAS issue was one of the largest single-tranche bonds in the Nordic market since 2001.
Working capital management has become one of the most important priorities for companies in recent years, which is why transaction banks are intensifying their efforts to meet treasurers’ needs in this area.
Best transaction services house in Nordics & Baltics
SEB has gone a step further than any other bank in the region to meet the working capital needs of corporate clients, underpinning why the bank has won the award again this year.
In the past 12 months SEB has brought together a wide range of products – including cash management, trade and supply chain finance – under a new and unified unit called working capital management. The aim is to better understand the needs of clients across these crucial businesses and, as a result, enhance the solutions SEB provides to them.
The combined offering encompasses everything from working capital release and financing to liquidity management, payment processing and emerging market risk management. “Put simply, by delivering a holistic working capital management solution, we can help customers get the cash on the table in the country where they want it to be,” says Paula da Silva, head of working capital management at SEB in Stockholm.
Supporting this new approach is the bank’s integrated cash management network, which, with a single point of entry to some 30 countries, is the largest network of its kind in Europe. In addition, SEB has grown its client base in the past year, and today the bank has relationships with over 90 of the largest 100 corporates in the Nordics and Baltics. The bank has also focused on small and medium-sized enterprises; in the past year it has attracted an additional 17,000 SME clients to its banking platform, boosting the number using its payment systems to 139,000.
Mobile banking is one of the key growth areas among corporates clients, and there SEB has been at the forefront of developments too. During 2013, the bank was the first in Sweden to offer a mobile banking app for its corporate customers, enabling them to access their account and payment services remotely and approve payments.
