Sweden

Finnish financial services group Sampo has offloaded €1.37bn of shares in Nordea, the largest bank in the Nordic region, as part of its planned exit from the group.

Sinch, the Swedish cloud-based communications services company, has raised Skr9.4bn (€926m) to fund M&A opportunities following an overnight share sale anchored by major investors.

The financial institutions bond market in euros was on hold on Tuesday, as European issuers saw no reason to rush into doing deals while global equities were selling off and interest rates were being buffeted by expectations of inflation.

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

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.

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.

Lansforsakringar Bank (LF Bank) enjoyed the sole attention of the market on Thursday as it placed the day's only senior bond in euros. With market conditions constructive, bankers expect more esoteric names could follow.