Highlights 2000

January

Close to 96% of Merita shareholders accepted the exchange of shares facilitating simplification of the Group's holding structure - Nordic Baltic Holding (NBH).

The Group purchased the Latvian and Lithuanian operations of the French bank Société Générale.

WAP mobile phone banking services launched starting in Finland.
 

February

Maizels, Westerberg & Co and Merita-Nordbanken Corporate and Structured Finance merged to form MNB Maizels.

The Group divested EUR 1.3bn in property holdings when the Finnish pension insurance company Ilmarinen acquired the real estate company Aleksia.
 

March

Unidanmark and MeritaNordbanken agreed to merge.
 

April

The Annual General Meeting of NBH passed necessary resolutions to implement the merger with Unidanmark.

More than 97% of Unidanmark share-holders approved the merger by accepting the NBH share exchange offer.
 

June

Moody's upgraded the banks of the Group.
 

August

The Group received The Banker's global award for the "best online business strategy".
 

October

The Norwegian Government Bank Investment Fund decided to sell its holding in Christiania Bank og Kreditkasse (CBK) to the Group.

The Group acquired control of more than 90% of shares in the Polish Bank Komunalny.

The Board decided to establish General Insurance in Finland.
 

November

The Group acquired control of close to 99% of CBK shares.

Solo Market launched in Denmark.

The Extraordinary General Meeting of NBH approved the new name of the Group, Nordea.
 

December

Nordea passed the milestone of 2 million electronic banking customers.

The Norwegian Government granted concession for Nordea to acquire all CBK shares.

Nordea issued EUR 1.2bn in sub-ordinated bonds in order to strengthen the capital base.

Nordea purchased the Polish Life Insurance company Heros Life.

Computer problems in Sweden underlined the importance of reliability and availability in IT-systems.
 

Source: Annual Report 2000