Baltics: DNB-Nordea combined bank could be floated on stock market

VILNIUS - Erkki Raasuke, CEO of the proposed combined bank of DNB and Nordea, says that the merger may not necessarily mean their withdrawal from the region and that it may end up in the floating of the new Baltic bank on the stock market, the business daily Verslo Zinios reported on Tuesday.

"I think floating the new bank on the local capital market would be quite a natural step. This is a retail banking business. And that means that our customers are not only businesses but also private individuals, a lot of people. It would be quite a good combination if we turned our clients into our shareholders in the long run," he told the paper in an interview.

"This is what LHV Bank has recently done via its IPO on the Tallinn stock exchange. Or what SEB and Swedbank have done in the past. Listing on the local market would make you more familiar and more local. You would not take your profit anywhere but would share it with your customers," he said.

According to the CEO, it would be difficult to map out a scenario for selling the combined bank, worth 6 billion euros, in the short-term.