Nordea - stands for Nordic Ideas - the new name of Nordic Baltic Holding

Nordea - stands for Nordic Ideas - the new name of Nordic Baltic Holding * The name of the new Nordic group is proposed to be Nordea. An Extraordinary General Meeting is called for 30 November 2000 to decide upon the new group name. * The bank and insurance companies in Finland, Sweden and Denmark will keep the old brands, endorsed by the new group brand Nordea. * The branding solutions to be used in Norway will be decided when Christiania Bank og Kreditkasse can join the Group. "Nordea summarises what this group is about. The sharing and exchange of Nordic Ideas within our new home market, creating enthusiasm among employees preparing for an exciting journey together, building on a Nordic heritage of quality and innovation, being part of integration in a region that is a growth area of Europe," says Vesa Vainio, Chairman of the Board. "Nordea," says Hans Dalborg, CEO and President, "is about our ambition to reach out personally to customers and serve them both locally and through world-class e-banking. Thus we increase competitiveness in each market and ensure growth from a focused penetration of one of the largest customer bases in European banking and insurance." "Nordea," says Thorleif Krarup, Deputy CEO, "is also about how to exchange Nordic Ideas for how to best improve operational efficiency, human resources development and to control costs, thus further strengthening competitiveness and ensuring return on equity from the realisation of synergies." The Extraordinary General Meeting will be held on 30 November 2000 to decide on necessary changes of the articles of association of the group parent company. The current Retail Banking, Insurance and Investment Banking brands will be kept. They will be endorsed by the Nordea brand to show that they are part of the same group with the same vision and the same values, exchanging products under the Nordea brand. The new brand will be applied by the Group as such and the business areas Corporate and Institutional Banking and Asset Management. Branch offices and insurance service centres will keep their current signage but have additions of Nordea clearly showing their group belonging. The combined brand structure now progressively applied will be kept as long as commercially sound. Legal entities within the core businesses of the Group have filed for registration of new secondary names based on Nordea, ensuring protection of the name and for branding purposes. Today Nordic Baltic Holding is run as an integrated group with six business areas. The Group was formed by merging three banks and one insurance group. The launch of the Group name Nordea confirms the unification of the Group and aims at helping customers increasingly recognise the entities, products and services as parts of the Group. Merita and Nordbanken merged in 1997 to form MeritaNordbanken. Unidanmark and Tryg-Baltica joined forces in 1999 and subsequently acquired the Norwegian insurance company Vesta later the same year. The two groups merged this spring and formed Nordic Baltic Holding. The Group's public offer for Christiania Bank og Kreditkasse has been increased and prolonged to 3 November 2000 and the Group has received acceptance of about 80 per cent of the shares and anticipate to reach more than 90 per cent acceptances by the expiry of the offer. To view the new logo please see www.nordicbalticholding.com. Further information: Lars Thalén, Head of Group Identity and Communications, +46 709 200 665 Torben Laustsen, Group Identity and Communications, +45 40 54 48 22 Lauri Peltola, Group Identity and Communications, +358 59 3241 445 ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by BIT http://www.bit.se The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/10/24/20001024BIT00870/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/10/24/20001024BIT00870/bit0002.pdf