Best bank – Hansapank
Best debt house – Hansapank
Best equity house – Suprema Securities
Best M&A house – Williams de Broë
Best local partner – Hansapank
Estonia has the most consolidated banking market of the three Baltic countries. The three leading banks are Hansapank, Eesti Ühispank and Sampo Pank. Combined these three account for 90% of assets in the banking sector.
Hansapank, which is 60% owned by Swedbank, has by the far the leading market share in terms of assets, at 59%. One analyst comments: “Hansapank is obviously the best bank when you consider all its services, and its growth is still impressive.”
However, there is increasing competition and Hansapank will have to respond if it’s not to lose too much of its market share to the other banks.
Nordea has been aggressive in Estonia, Latvia and, to some extent, Lithuania. Eesti Ühispank, which is fully owned by Swedish bank SEB, has tried to catch this momentum and Sampo has also been quite aggressive in terms of providing new services and products in Estonia, especially on the loan side.
Hansapank also wins this year’s award for best debt house in Estonia. There were only three international deals out of Estonia during the past year and Hansapank acted as co-lead on all of them. The largest was a e300 million issue for the bank in March this year. The second largest was a e200 million issue for Eesti Energi and the third a sovereign issue for e100 million in June last year.
The one to watch for next year is HSH-Nordbank which recently opened an office in Estonia. The firm has had an impressive year structuring deals for Oberhaus Real Estate (e22 million), Estonian Railway (e12.5 million) and financing for Linstow Varner Baltic’s development of the Ülemiste shopping centre in Tallinn (e30 million).
This year’s award for best equities house goes to Suprema Securities. The firm acted as sole arranger on a private placement for e1.1 million for V&K Holdings, the largest Baltic distribution and rentals company, in April this year. The firm is also strong in the secondary market, with the second largest market share on the local stock exchange.
Williams de Broë takes this year’s award for best M&A house for its role in advising Tallink, an Estonian ferry company, when its largest shareholder sold 10% of its stake to private equity investors for around e10 million in April last year. Williams de Broë says the transaction was a pre-IPO placement.
Because of the limited amount of activity in equities and M&A, the award for best local partner goes to Hansapank for its involvement in debt capital markets. The bank has acted on all of the primary debt market deals that involved foreign banks.
