Best bank – Nordea
Best debt house – Nordea Markets
Best equity house – Nordea Securities
Best M&A house – Goldman Sachs
Best local partner – Conventum
Nordea is the leading bank in Finland. The other major banks in Finland are the co operative banks and Sampo, a corporate bank, while Nordea is strong across the board and has a 40% market share. Nordea has a large network in Finland, with 440 branches, 3.3 million personal banking customers and 330,000 corporate customers.
Nordea does a good job at keeping its corporate customers happy with good cash management services, which is making it difficult for other banks to gain on the bank in Finland, according to analysts.
The bank has also been innovative in deciding to outsource its international research to Standard & Poor’s, while retaining its in-house domestic research team, in April this year. This enabled it to provide independent research to its customers as well as rationalizing this part of its business.
At the end of the first quarter of 2003, Nordea had e262 billion in total assets and its operating profit in the first quarter of this year was e446 million.
Local house Nordea Markets wins this year’s award for best debt house in Finland, with ABN Amro hot on its heels. No one house has been consistent across primary issuance for sovereigns, financials, corporates and loans. However, Nordea has been in the top two by market share in both sovereigns and corporates and has top market share in syndicated loans.
Nordea acted as a lead arranger for Stora Enso’s e2.5 billion five-year syndicated loan in January this year. It also arranged Fortum Corporation’s e1.2 billion five-year revolving credit facility in April 2003. Nordea and ABN Amro were the only two to act as lead managers on both the e6 billion 11-year and e6.5 billion three-year issues for the Republic of Finland. Nordea also acted as a lead manager for the Municipality Finance’s debut e500 million five-year issue in April this year.
And, unlike ABN, Nordea was also strong in Finnish corporate issuance, acting as joint bookrunner with Goldman Sachs on a e300 million issue for Sonera in May 2002.
Primary equity market activity in Finland has been limited over the past 12 months and there have been no IPOs. Merrill Lynch tops the league table for its role as sole bookrunner on energy group Fortum’s secondary share offering for $428 million in June last year. Citigroup was also involved in a $236 million accelerated bookbuild for Stora Enso in June 2002. However, Nordea Securities, which takes the best equity house award, has increased its market share over the past year and acted as co-lead on the Fortum deal and sole bookrunner for the retail offering.
Nordea Securities also acted as joint global co ordinator on a e300million rights issue for diversified metals group Outokumpu. Both deals were successfully placed and after-market performance was strong. Outokumpu’s share price rose by 14% in the week after the issue’s launch.
Nordea Securities has had the largest market share on the Helsinki stock exchange during the 12-month period, with 8.26%. Carnegie comes second with 8.13% but has not been as strong in the primary markets. Nordea was also rated number one for its research in a survey by Prospera in 2002.
Goldman Sachs wins the award for best M&A house in Finland for its involvement in the top deals. The second-largest deal of the year in the Nordic region is General Electric’s acquisition of Instrumentarium for $2.2 billion announced in December last year. Goldman Sachs is advising GE.
The firm also worked on a purely domestic deal advising Finnish stainless steel producer AvestaPolarit when it was bought by Finnish metals and technology company Outokompu for $500 million in July last year.
Many bankers feel that Mandatum and Conventum are the best local partners in Finland. Conventum wins this year’s award because it worked on the most deals over e100 million involving foreign and local banks. For example, it co-advised Finnish engineer Partek alongside Lehman Brothers and UBS when it was bought by Kone in May 2002. Both Conventum and Carnegie were the local banks advising Outokompu on its acquisition of AvestaPolarit with JPMorgan in July 2002.
