Svenska Handelsbanken sells repurchased shares to finance part of Midtbank A/S acquisition

Svenska Handelsbanken sells repurchased shares to finance part of Midtbank A/S acquisition At the Annual General Meeting on 24 April 2001, the Board of Svenska Handelsbanken was given a mandate to sell shares to raise cash in connection with acquisition of companies. In April 2001, Svenska Handelsbanken made a public bid to the shareholders of Midtbank A/S and the Bank has now acquired 98 % of the shares in Midtbank A/S. Today, the Board of Svenska Handelsbanken resolved to sell 1 639 000 Ordinary Class A shares and 3 900 000 Ordinary Class B shares in order to finance part of the purchase of Midtbank A/S. The sales have been effected with the A shares sold at SEK 151 per share and the B shares at SEK 144 per share. Svenska Handelsbanken sold shares for a total of SEK 809 million. The shares were sold to AMF Pension and AB Industrivärden. At the end of the first quarter of this year, Svenska Handelsbanken's shareholders' equity was SEK 44 billion and its Tier 1 ratio was 6.1 %. If the acquisition of Midtbank A/S and today's sale of the repurchased shares had been carried out as at 31 March 2001, the Bank's equity would have been SEK 44.8 billion and the Tier 1 ratio 5.9 %. For further information please contact: Lennart Francke, Head of Accounting and Control, Tel +46 8-22 92 20, e-mail lefr01@handelsbanken .se Bengt Ragnå, Head of Investor Relations, Tel +46 8-70112 16, e-mail bera02@handelsbanken.se ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by Waymaker http://www.waymaker.net The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2001/06/18/20010618BIT00250/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2001/06/18/20010618BIT00250/bit0002.pdf