Senior FRNs added to Skandia Norway switch

Sweden’s Skandiabanken is seeking bondholder approval to transfer two outstanding Norwegian krone senior unsecured FRNs to a new subsidiary in Norway it is establishing ahead of a fourth quarter IPO of its banking operations in that country.

The bank launched the exercise on Wednesday after having already begun a similar move for covered bonds it has issued that are denominated in Norwegian kroner and backed by Norwegian residential mortgages.

(See last week’s Nordic FIs & Covered for more details.)

The two FRNs, maturing in 2017 and 2019, total Nkr1.62bn (Eu175m, Skr1.65bn) and represent all Skandiabanken’s outstanding senior unsecured debt in Norwegian krone, meaning that the Swedish bank will only have Swedish krona issues outstanding should it gain approval for the move.

The new issuer of the bonds will ultimately be the new Skandiabanken ASA, which is being created out of Skandiabanken’s Norwegian branch.