Nordics

This week's scorecard looks at the progress Nordic agencies have made in their funding programmes in early May.

DNB Boligkreditt took advantage of strong market conditions to mandate leads for its second covered bond of the year on Tuesday.

Danish software company Trifork has announced its intention to float on Nasdaq Copenhagen, having attracted large commitments for stock from cornerstone investors.

Swedish property website Hemnet has succeeded in a difficult IPO market, its shares rising 50% on its first day of trading in Stockholm.

Solidium, the organisation that manages the investments of the Finnish government, has reduced its stake in SSAB after the steel maker reported a strong set of first quarter earnings.

Equity investors showed they were stepping up in numbers to invest in primary growth capital raises across Europe after Elkem, the Norwegian silicone manufacturer, raised $228m-equivalent and Greek bank Piraeus completed a €1.38bn raise to help clean up its non-performing loan book.

Danmarks Nationalbank, the Danish central bank, has hired a new head of monetary policy operations and government debt.

Despite a wave of supply last week, the dollar bond market seems poised for another strong session with a jumbo outing from the European Investment Bank on Tuesday and several borrowers lining up for Wednesday.

One of the shareholders in EQT, the Swedish private equity firm, has provided a rare liquidity event in the stock, which has rocketed more than 326% since its flotation in September 2019.

Swedish house selling platform Hemnet opened on Monday the books for its IPO on the Nasdaq Stockholm. Sources close to the deal said that the transaction was proving popular and expected it to price at a premium to listed competitors like the UK's Rightmove.

A handful of borrowers are circling the Nordic markets with an eye to printing after the end of first quarter results. But the looming blackouts have not deterred every type of credit from tapping the market as a range of corporate, covered bond and financial issuers placed paper this week.

Trustly, a Swedish payments company that allows people to transfer money directly from their bank accounts to make payments, has launched an IPO on Nasdaq Stockholm.