Potential loss on Optin Bank ASA investment
Optin Bank ASA has been placed in public administration in Norway by The Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway, which is a public restructuring process. It is too early to assess the final loss for 24SevenOffice.
24SevenOffice has invested approximately 19 MSEK for a 10% stake in Optin Bank ASA and also signed an agreement to launch integrated banking products towards 24SevenOffice customers with the bank. 24SevenOffice have worked hard together with the bank's tech team the last 12 months with the goal to launch the first products in the first half of 2021. The most important products were now basically ready to launch technically within a few weeks to both our clients and their end customers.
In a recent report The Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway demanded that Optin Bank needed to increase the capital by 100 MNOK and replace the management and board to, among others, comply with compliance and general banking knowledge.
24SevenOffice had a solution with a consortium guaranteeing the capital required and a completely new board, CEO and management team ready to start immediately in Optin Bank to restructure and comply with the demands required by The Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway. In a general meeting on 16th of June the shareholders in Optin met to vote on the solution by 24SevenOffice.
More than ⅓ of the shareholders in Optin Bank had already the day before made a commitment to sell their shares to another bank, Nordic Corporate Bank ASA (NCB), and our solution was unfortunately voted in disfavour and rejected by more than ⅔ of the shareholders at the general meeting. The shareholders rejected the 24SevenOffice solution despite strong advice from 24SevenOffice to Optin Bank´s board, advisors and shareholders that the NCB solution alone would be very difficult and unlikely.
24SevenOffice has demanded an investigation of Optin Bank ASA and conditions around the general meeting and based on the information we had with the background in the report from the The Financial Supervisory Authority as well as the fact that Optin Bank tried to keep 24SevenOffice and its observer to the board from getting access to the report in a timely manner, the poor results, the budget deviation, and the terrible/shocking report from The Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway.
24SevenOffice has since the general meeting worked hard to bring constructive suggestions to a solution for the bank, but unfortunately the decision makers in Optin Bank and NCB were not interested in finding balanced solutions to save Optin Bank and continue to deliver integrated banking services for 24SevenOffice customers.
Based on the situation The Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway has decided to place Optin Bank ASA under public administration, which is a public restructuring process where the public administration shall seek to find the best solution for customers and the social responsibility. 24SevenOffice will do everything in our power to get a dialogue with the public administration board and work in a constructive manner to continue to work for a solution.
It is too early to assess the final loss for 24SevenOffice. This is because of a potential payment from the bank, dividend or potential compensation to 24SevenOffice.
24SevenOffice has already started the work to search for new potential partners to be able to launch the integrated fintech products as soon as possible. The developments and the knowledge invested in 24SevenOffice are partly still in the ownership of 24SevenOffice and can be adopted to another bank partner in the future. The launch of fintech products in 24SevenOffice will although be delayed.
The Board of Directors will monitor the future process closely and inform the market of any major development going forward.
This disclosure contains information that 24SevenOffice Scandinavia AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation (EU nr 596/2014). The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person, on 23-06-2021 13:52 CET.
For further information please contact:
Ståle Risa, CEO
Tel: +46 70-023 63 03, str@24sevenoffice.com
24SevenOffice in brief
24SevenOffice's vision is to empower businesses for the future, through delivering world class cloud based business systems. The system is currently used by 62,600 companies in the Nordic region, with PwC, among others, as accounting partner. The business system is module-based, where the modules are provided independently or packaged as complete solutions. For more information see www.24sevenoffice.com