Luminor Bank AS is a bank headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia, with branches in Latvia and Lithuania.[3] It is the third-largest bank in the Baltics[2] and in Estonia.[4] Luminor has a deposit market share of 16% and lending market share of 22%.[1]

Luminor Bank AS
IndustryFinance
PredecessorsBranches of Nordea and DNB in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania
Founded2017; 7 years ago (2017) in Tallinn, Estonia
Headquarters,
Estonia
Area served
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Key people
Peter Bosek (CEO)
Nils Melngailis (Chairman)
Gunnar Toomemets (Head of private banking)
Kerli Gabrilovica (Head of the Latvian branch)
Andrius Načajus (Head of the Lithuanian branch)[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 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% of Luminor's shares will be sold to the Blackstone Group led consortium.[5] The transaction was approved by the European Commission in January 2019.[2] The transaction was completed in September 2019.[6] After the transaction, Nordea and DNB own of 20% stakes both.[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]

The CEO of Luminor is Peter Bosek and the chairman of the supervisory board is Nils Melngailis.[1][5] Kerli Gabrilovica is head of the Latvian branch and Andrius Načajus is head of the Lithuanian branch.[1] 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 over €15 billion of assets.[2]

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 edit

  1. ^ a b c d e "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 i j "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. ^ Major Banks of Estonia
  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.

External links edit