Two of Scandinavia’s biggest banks – Sweden’s SEB and Danske Bank of Denmark – on Thursday announced they would seek to raise capital as their loan losses mounted. Until now Swedbank – which raised Skr12.4bn ($1.5bn) in November – was the only big Nordic bank to have shored up its capital base significantly. SEB, Sweden’s second-largest bank, is planning a Skr15bn rights issue and will withhold its dividend for 2008. It may also tap Stockholm’s Skr50bn bank rescue fund. Danske Bank said it would apply for Dkr26bn ($4.48bn) in loans under Denmark’s latest bank bail-out scheme after making a Q4 loss of Dkr5.89bn as loan impairments soared to Dkr9.2bn. Lex says SEB’s woes highlight the crisis in the Baltics, which accounts for half its loss provisions.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 5:24 and is filed under Capital markets. Tagged with Danske Bank, SEB. Edit this entry.