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Luminor Bank

Luminor Bank AS
IndustryFinance
PredecessorsBranches of Nordea and DNB in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania
Founded2017; 8 years ago (2017) in Tallinn, Estonia
Headquarters
Tallinn
,
Estonia
Area served
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Key people
Wojciech Sass (CEO)
Nils Melngailis (Chairman)[1]
ServicesRetail banking
Total assetsover €15 billion[2] (2018)
OwnerBlackstone Group (80.05%)
DNB (19.95%)
Number of employees
3,000[2] (2018)
Websiteluminor.ee
Lithuanian HQ in Vilnius CBD

Luminor Bank AS is a bank headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia, with branches in Latvia and Lithuania.[3] As of 2019 it was the third-largest bank in the Baltics, with a deposit market share of 16% and lending market share of 22%.[1] In June 2024, it was reported that both OTP Bank and UniCredit were bidding to acquire control of Luminor from the Blackstone Group.[4]

Overview

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Luminor was founded in August 2017 on the basis of the Baltic operations of Nordea and DNB.[2] Luminor took over 930,000 of DNB's former customers and 350,000 of Nordea former customers.[2] The merger was completed on 1 January 2019.[1]

Originally, Nordea owned 56.5% and DNB owned 43.5% of Luminor.[2][5] In September 2018, it was announced that 60 percent of Luminor's shares would be sold to a consortium led by Blackstone Group.[5] The transaction was approved by the European Commission in January 2019,[2] and completed in September 2019.[6] After the transaction, Nordea and DNB owned stakes of 20 percent each.[6][2] Blackstone and Nordea have agreed that Blackstone would also purchase Nordea's remaining 20% in Luminor.[3] In December 2021 Blackstone acquired 8.4% of Nordea’s shares and in September 2022 bought the remaining 11.6%.[7]

As of 2019, the CEO of Luminor was Peter Bosek and the chairman of the supervisory board was Nils Melngailis.[1][5] As of 2018, Luminor had 3,000 employees.[2] In February 2019, the bank announced that, due to consolidation, it would reduce its staff by 130 employees in Estonia, 250 employees in Latvia, and 420 employees in Lithuania.[3] The bank also closed 26 of their 61 customer service centers in the Baltic states in 2019.[8]

Luminor has been designated in 2017 as a Significant Institution under the criteria of European Banking Supervision, and as a consequence is directly supervised by the European Central Bank.[9] In 2019, with 12.9 billion EUR, Luminor issued the highest total amount of loans in Estonia.[10]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d "Luminor merger complete, nothing to change for clients, says bank". ERR. 2019-01-02. Retrieved 2019-02-06.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h "European Commission clears Blackstone to buy Luminor". ERR. BNS. 2019-01-22. Retrieved 2019-02-06.
  3. ^ a b c Shah, Shakhil (2019-02-06). "Luminor to lay off around 800 staff in Baltics". Emerging Europe. Retrieved 2019-02-06.
  4. ^ Jan-Henrik Foerster, Sonia Sirletti, & Swetha Gopinath (25 June 2024). "UniCredit Competing With OTP to Buy Blackstone's Luminor". Bloomberg News.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. ^ a b c "Blackstone to acquire €1 billion majority stake in Luminor". ERR. 2018-09-13. Retrieved 2019-02-06.
  6. ^ a b "Blackstone closes €1 billion acquisition of Baltic bank Luminor". LSM. 2019-09-30. Retrieved 2019-09-30.
  7. ^ "U.S. investment company Blackstone becomes owner of 80.05% of Luminor Holding shares". Baltic News Network. 2022-09-01. Retrieved 2024-03-15.
  8. ^ "Luminor Bank to cut number of customer service centers in Baltics". www.baltictimes.com. Retrieved 2024-03-15.
  9. ^ "List of supervised entities" (PDF). European Central Bank. 1 January 2023.
  10. ^ "Swedbank has most deposits, Luminor loans". ERR. 2020-04-05. Retrieved 2024-03-15.
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