MeritaNordbanken and Ilmarinen signed the Aleksia deal

MeritaNordbanken and Ilmarinen signed the Aleksia deal MeritaNordbanken and Ilmarinen, the Finnish pension insurance company signed a deal on the share capital of the real estate company Aleksia. Following Ilmarinen's acquisition of the real estate company Aleksia, the parties have agreed that part of the real estate property transferred to the ownership of Ilmarinen be sold gradually on the markets. The sales of the real estate property will be carried out in collaboration with MeritaNordbanken and Ilmarinen. The companies have made an agreement on how to divide the profits to be gained from the sales of the real estate property. There are approximately100 real estates to be sold. The real estates are not located in downtown Helsinki. "We estimate that the sales of the real estate property will have a potential of several millions of Finnish marks. It is in the interest of MeritaNordbanken to handle a substantial part of the sales of the real estate property. Therefore, we have made an agreement that the sales be carried out in collaboration with Ilmarinen", says Pertti Voutilainen, Executive Vice President of MeritaNordbanken. Mr Voutilainen is reponsible for real estate property matters in the Group management of MeritaNordbanken. The sales of Aleksia will reduce the balance sheet value of MeritaNordbanken's real estate holdings by approximately EUR 1.3 billion. The bank will continue to divest the Group's real estate holdings in accordance with its strategy. "At the same time when the prices of real estate shares in Finland are low, the prices of real estates continue to increase along with the rapid economic growth. I am currently much more optimistic than a year ago about our ability to sell all the real estate property, as shown in MeritaNordbanken's balance sheet, on favourable terms from the bank's viewpoint", says Pertti Voutilainen. Further information: Pertti Voutilainen, Executive Vice President, tel. +358 9 165 41041 Jarmo Laiho, Executive Vice President, tel. +358 9 164 42118 Lauri Peltola, Press Relations Manager, tel. +358 9 165 42324 ------------------------------------------------------------ Please visit http://www.bit.se for further information The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/04/10/20000410BIT00070/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/04/10/20000410BIT00070/bit0002.pdf