Sep.26--A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S (MAERSKB) won’t sell its controlling 20-percent stake in Danske Bank A/S (DANSKE) because it wants to keep Denmark’s biggest lender Danish, Chief Executive Officer Nils Smedegaard Andersen said.
“The stake is not up for debate,” Andersen said in an interview in Copenhagen yesterday. “It would be very, very sad if Danske Bank wasn’t a Danish company with headquarters in Denmark.”
While Maersk has sold assets such as stakes in a supermarket chain and a ferry operator under Andersen to focus on core shipping and oil businesses, Denmark’s biggest company has supported Danske in two share sales since the lender became mired in a regional banking crisis that claimed more than 60 banks.
Maersk’s biggest owner is a holding company chaired by Ane Maersk Mc-Kinney Uggla, the granddaughter of the company’s founder.
“Danske Bank is a passive investment and we take it for granted,” Andersen said. “Our main owner finds it very important that Danske Bank is in Danish hands and in our hands, and I agree with that view.”
Dividends Received
Danske shares rose 1.4 percent today at 10:35 a.m. in Copenhagen compared with a 0.4 percent advance in the Bloomberg Europe Banks and Financial Services Index.
The stock has gained about 32 percent this year, helped by CEO Thomas Borgen’s strategy to scale back operations to cut costs and raise shareholder returns. The share is still 35 percent down from a February 2007 peak.
“Everybody can see what it’s worth, it’s a passive investment and we get our dividends,” Andersen said.
Under Borgen, who’s been CEO for a year, Danske had its credit rating raised to A from A- at Standard & Poor’s, helping reduce the cost of borrowing. Since 2007, the lender has cut its headcount by more than 4,700 people to 18,914 at the end of June.
Borgen said in July there may be more job cuts, unless the markets for fixed income and currency trading improve. The bank in July raised its outlook for 2014 net income by 1 billion kroner ($172 million) to as much as 13 billion kroner.
Maersk has been reducing its dependence on bank loans and plans to increase the bond portion of its debt to more than half from currently about a third. The company has used Danske’s biggest competitor, Stockholm-based Nordea Bank AB, for a number of its corporate finance actions, including as the lead manager for a share buy-back plan introduced this year and for most bond sales.
“Danske Bank is an important source of credit, but it’s not our only one,” Andersen said. “So we don’t have any strategic benefits from having the Danske Bank stake in that sense.”
(Source: Bloomberg)