Best bank – Danske Bank
Best debt house – Deutsche Bank
Best equity house – Nordea Securities
Best M&A house – Enskilda Securities
Best local partner – Nordea Securities
Danske Bank is by far the dominant bank in Denmark, where it has around 35% market share, and again wins the award for best bank. The total assets of the consolidated group grew from DKr1.54 billion in 2001 to DKr1.75 billion ($275 million) in 2002 and the bank delivered a return on equity of 14%. Last year Danske Bank completed its merger with RealDanmark, a deal that was first announced in October 2000. This led to cost savings of DKr2.2 billion, involving the closure of 139 branches, staff reductions of 2,700 and the largest IT conversion in Danish history. These synergies were all implemented by the end of 2002, a year ahead of schedule.
Danske has a strong position in fixed income in Denmark. It has closed down its international equities business, which analysts see as a positive move, but is still present in domestic equities.
Deutsche Bank wins this year’s award for best debt house in Denmark. Deutsche has been the most consistent across primary issuance for financials, sovereigns and corporates and has the largest market share in primary issuance over the 12-month period.
The bank acted as joint bookrunner on both the e1.5 billion five-year and e2.3 billion 5-year, 6-month issue for the Kingdom of Denmark in April 2002 and May 2003 respectively. Deutsche also acted as joint bookrunner on the unrated Danish Carlsberg Breweries’ debut e500 million Eurobond issue in July last year and was sole bookrunner on a e250 million deal for Danske Bank in February this year.
Deutsche also has strong credit research coverage in the region. The bank’s consumer credit research team, which covers Carlsberg, was rated as number one in Euromoney’s 2003 European Credit Research poll.
The largest equity transaction in Denmark over the past 12 months was a $201 million accelerated bookbuild for pharmaceuticals company Lundbeck. Morgan Stanley acted as bookrunner on this deal, which was completed in April last year. However, Nordea Securities wins the best equity house award for its involvement in several deals and for being the largest broker by turnover in 2002 on the Copenhagen stock exchange.
The firm acted as sole bookrunner on a smaller directed equity offering for wind turbine manufacturer NEG Micon in May 2002. Nordea also acted as lead manager for the $6 million rights issue for maritime communication equipment manufacturer EuroCom Industries.
Although Enskilda Securities does not top the M&A league tables in Denmark for the past 12-month period – it comes third – it has been involved in several more deals than the two that top the tables. It takes the best M&A house award.
Goldman Sachs advised Microsoft on its acquisition of Danish integrated business software solutions provider Navision, with a transaction size of $1.2 billion, and advised Danish pharmaceutical group Nycomed Pharma in its acquisition by a consortium of CSFB private equity, Blackstone Capital Partners and NIB Capital Private Equity. CSFB advised the consortium. CSFB also advised Nordea’s general insurance operations in Sweden when it was sold to Danish insurance group Tryg i Danmark in June last year.
Enskilda acted as sole adviser to Danish chewing gum manufacturer Dandy on its sale to Cadbury Schweppes in June last year for e346 million. This was quite a complex deal since it involved a demerger of Dandy Holding into Dandy A/S (the branded business) and Gum-Link A/S (the private label production facility). Then 100% of Dandy A/S was sold to Cadbury as well as 25% of Gum-Link A/S. David Kell, director at Enskilda Securities, says: “The deal required restructuring to retain part of that business.”
The firm also advised Danish building materials company Danske Traelast on its sale to UK private-equity house CVC Capital Partners. “The company put itself up for sale and we ran a process for them and identified CVC,” says Kell.
Enskilda Securities was also involved with several other transactions such as the BioGaia/Novozymes deal, CMG/EcSoft, CW Obel/Bravida, and the Møller Hansen family in its sale of Dansk Droge to Polaris Private Equity.
Nordea Securities wins the award for best local partner this year. Enskilda Securities and Nordea Securities are the two local firms that rank highest on the league tables for M&A deals done over the 12-month period. However, Nordea has more of a focus on advising Danish corporates whether on a Nordic or an international deal, while Enskilda – in addition to advising Danish companies – has advised non-Danish companies on transactions with Danish parties.
