FINLAND – Just over 100 European institutional investors have snapped up the shares in Finnish financial services firm FIM Group’s new initial public offering.

They bought 8.25m shares – with institutional demand for holdings in the €3bn investment services group outnumbering supply by more than 11 to 1.

According to FIM chief executive Jan Forsbom, 85% of the institutional investors were from outside Finland. Roughly 55% were from the Nordic countries, 17% were in the UK and the remainder were largely from central Europe and France.

FIM declined to name any specific institutional investors. Nordic investment banking adviser Carnegie, which jointly managed the IPO with FIM, also declined to comment.

While not many pension funds purchased shares directly, institutional asset managers and mutual funds bought the majority of shares, Forsbom told IPE.

Forsbom told IPE that the high demand was due to, amongst others, FIM’s growth and profitability in all of its three business areas - asset management, broking and investment banking. He added that FIM is a “pioneer” in emerging market funds, and it has Russian exposure.

While 8.25m shares were sold to institutional investors, 1.45m were purchased by retail investors. The shares allocated in the offering represent 26.8% of the total number of company shares, according to FIM.

From tomorrow, FIM will be listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. According to a statement from FIM, net proceeds of €19m are expected after fees and commissions.

Topics