SEB uninterested in Scandinavian banks exiting Baltic market
While on a recent visit to Estonia to meet with leaders from the bank's Baltic Divison, SEB Group’s President and CEO Annika Falkengren was asked whether SEB would be interested in buying out smaller Scandinavian banks exiting the Baltic market. The CEO replied that SEB would continue focusing on internal growth rather than acquisitions.
"In the future I think you will see that some of us banks will partner up with think tanks, that we may be able to work together,” Falkengren told ETV nightly news broadcast “Aktuaalne kaamera.” “[Banks will continue to] do some things ourselves, and we might do some things differently. We don’t really know how this is going to look, but I think it’s going to change. [For this] I think you have to have a much broader mindset.”
Falkengren also found that it was more expensive for the bank to grow organically, which presented a greater challenge, and that "...for SEB, we found that this is a better way for us to grow the bank than acquisitions."
Editor: Editor: Aili Sarapik