With special thanks to Sigurd Gulliksrud for granting me permission to use this interesting photo on my blog. You can see more of his photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28521742@N00/
Danske Bank A/S
Danske Bank was established in 1871 under the name Den Danske Landmandsbank, Hypothek- og Vexelbank i Kjøbenhavn, or The Danish Farmers, Mortgage and Exchange Bank in Copenhagen. The bank’s name was simplified to Den Danske Landmandsbank, which in 1976 was further shortened to Den Danske Bank.
Meanwhile, in 1873, rival Aktieselskabet (A/S) Kjøbenhavns Handelsbank (“The Copenhagen Commercial Bank”) was also founded. The bank was commonly known simply as Handelsbanken.
In 1967, provincial bank Fyens Disconto Kasse merged with Aarhus Privatbank to form the Den Danske Provinsbank (Provinsbanken).
Recent transaction(s):
- In 1990, facing increasing foreign competition and the need to achieve greater economies of scale, Den Danske Bank, Handelsbanken and Provinsbanken merged and retained the name Den Danske Bank.
- In 1997, Den Danske bought Swedish bank Östgöta Enskilda Bank.
- In 1999, bought Norway's Fokus Bank for NOK 5.815-billion (USD $778-million). During the bidding war for Fokus Bank, Sweden's Svenska Handelsbanken had also offered the same price for Fokus Bank, but the Norwegian bank opted to accept Den Danske's offer rather than that of Svenska Handelsbanken.
- In 2000, Den Danske Bank acquired RealDanmark A/S for USD $3.30-billion, which consisted of BG Bank and Realkredit Danmark.
- In 2001, the "Den" was dropped from the name Den Danske Bank.
- In 2004, Danske Bank A/S purchased National Australia Bank's Irish and Northern Irish banking operations (National Irish Bank and Northern Bank) for GBP 967-million (DKK 10.4-billion, Eur 1.3-billion, USD $1.86-billion, AUD $2.5-billion). Northern Bank is one of the four commercial banks that are authorized to issue Pound Sterling banknotes in Northern Ireland. The bank had 95 branches and 349,000 clients in Northern Ireland; and 59 branches and 134,000 clients in the Republic of Ireland.
- In 2006, bought Finland's No. 3 bank Sampo Bank for Eur 4.05-billion (DKR 30.1-billion, USD $5.15-billion). Sampo Bank served 1.1-million retail clients and 100,000 corporate clients through 125 branches in Finland, and 33 branches in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and in the Russian city of St. Petersburg.
- Following the burst of the U.S. housing bubble in 2007, losses from the collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) soared to trillions of dollars around the world, causing the inter-bank credit market to freeze up in the summer of 2008. As funding sources dried up, investment banks Bear Stearns & Co. and Lehman Brothers went de facto bankrupt. Many of the world's largest banks, including Citigroup, Wachovia, Washington Mutual, HBOS, Royal Bank of Scotland, Allied Irish Banks, Fortis, and all three of Iceland's commercial banks certainly would have collapsed also without emergency state aid. It was during this turbulent time that the Danish state offered DKK 46-billion to bolster the capital base of 43 Danish financial institutions.
- In March 2009, Danske Bank formally applied for DKK 26-billion (Eur 3.49-billion, USD $4.65-billion) of capital injection from the Danish government in exchange for Danske's subordinated hybrid securities.
- In February 2011, Danske Bank announced plans to raise DKK 20-billion (Eur 2.68-billion, USD $3.61-billion) from a rights issue to repay the hybrid state loan from the Danish government.
- In December 2017, Danske Bank's pension subsidiary Danica Pension agreed to acquire Swedish bank SEB's (Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken) SEB Pensionsforsikring and SEB Administration for DKK 6.5-billion (EUR 873-million). The acquisition added 200,000 new accounts to Danica Pension's existing 600,000 clients. The enlarged Danica Pension would have DKK 547-billion (EUR 73.5-billion) of assets under management, making it the second largest pension manager in Denmark.
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