Highlights 2004

January

Nordea takes yet another step towards simplifying its legal structure and to become a European Company. The parent company, Nordea AB (publ), was granted a bank charter and thus changed its name to Nordea Bank AB (publ) as of 30 January 2004.
 

February

Nordea's real estate divestment process continues as further properties in Finland are sold.

March

Nordea outsources paper based payment services in response to decreased demand of paper-based services. The long-term agreement reduces costs yet maintains services. Nordea completes the repurchase of own shares in relation to the decision by the Board of Directors on 29 October 2003. A total of 145 million shares, or approx. 5% of the total shares in the company, has been repurchased.
 

April

Nordea completes its real estate divestment process by the sale of central business district properties in Finland, Norway and Sweden. Following the completion, Nordea owns no major properties. Nordea’s first quarter results show operating profit up 52% and more than doubled net profit.

June

Nordea outsources debt-collection operations in Sweden in line with its strategy to focus on core business.

Nordea divests 17 per cent of Bankgirot reducing its ownership stake to 10 per cent according to the conditions stipulated by the EU Commission in connection with Nordea's acquisition of Postgirot.
 

August

Nordea and Standard & Poor's sign an exclusive agreement that provides Nordea's customers with the broadest and most comprehensive range of company research in the Nordic market. The agreement is the first of its kind worldwide. Nordea’s second quarter results show operating profit up 15% and net profit up 64%.

September

Nordea receives global e-banking award from The Banker magazine motivated by the facts that
Nordea's e-banking services are the most widely used in the world with most transactions and a
steady growth of e-banking customers.

Nordea announces plans to transform Nordea Liv I (former Livia) in Sweden into a demutualised company and asks policyholders to vote for demu-tualisation. Nordea makes its retail banking organisation more Nordic and appoints Peter Schütze as head of Retail Banking and Frans Lindelöw as deputy head of Retail Banking.

Nordea adds two new members to Group Executive Management, Lena Eriksson and Frans Lindelöw.
 

October

Nordea’s third quarter results show operating profit up 15% and net profit up 15.
The Board of Nordea Bank AB (publ) decides, within the framework of the authorisation by the
Annual General Meeting, to reactivate the repurchase programme to buy back up to a
maximum of 139 million of its own shares (equivalent to approximately 5% of the total shares).
 

November

Financial News, the leading weekly newspaper for the European securities, investment banking and asset management industries rate Nordea Nordic asset manager of the year.
 

December

The number of Nordea customers who use Internet services has now passed 4 million.

Source: Annual Review 2004