(Bloomberg) -- Sampo Oyj, the biggest owner of Nordea Bank Abp, took another step toward exiting its holding in the Nordic region's largest lender, offering stock to investors in a deal that could be worth about 745 million euros ($880 million).
Sampo is selling as many as 73 million shares in Nordea via an accelerated bookbuild offering, the Helsinki-based company said. The shares are marketed at 10.20 euros to Thursday's closing price of 10.352 euros each, according to terms seen by Bloomberg News, compared with a book value of 7.93 euros a share on June 30.
Thursday's sale is the third time Sampo offloaded Nordea stock over the past year, following offerings in November and May. And in 2019, it distributed a small amount to its shareholders.
The Finnish insurer said it aims to materially reduce its ownership in Nordea by the end of August next year, though Chairman Bjorn Wahlroos has said the intention is to exit the holding in full. Sampo is focusing its strategy and capital allocation toward property and casualty insurance.
If the shares are sold in full, the insurer's stake in Nordea will fall by 1.8 percentage points to 10.1% of all outstanding shares. Sampo had gathered enough investor demand to cover the offering within less than 30 minutes of opening the book, deal terms showed.
Nordea has permission from its shareholders to buy back more than 12% of its share capital at any one time, though it can't hang on to a holding of more than 10%. Chief Executive Officer Frank Vang-Jensen has said he's ready to start the purchases when cleared by Nordea's regulator, the European Central Bank.
Meanwhile, Sampo's CEO Torbjorn Magnusson has said he plans to use incoming funds on making bolt-on acquisitions in the Nordic insurance industry or returning money to shareholders, who should prepare for “some sort of extra capital distribution during 2022 at the latest.”
Sampo has faced pressure from activist investor Elliott Management Corp., which said earlier this year the Finnish insurer could free up as much as $10 billion in shareholder value by disposing of the Nordea stake.
Bank of America Corp. is leading Thursday's stake sale.
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