The story
FIH was founded in 1958 by initiative from the Danish Government to provide medium and long term capital for the Danish industry. In the beginning, FIH was owned by the Danish Central Bank, selected domestic banks, insurance companies, and the Confederation of Danish Industries.
In 1988, FIH was listed on the Copenhagen stock exchange and in 1989, FIH was assigned its first credit rating by Moody's Investors Service. In 1999, FI Holding A/S purchased FIH. FI Holding was established at this point – with the majority shareholder Swedbank owning 60 per cent of shares.
In June 2004, Kaupthing Bank hf Iceland bought 100 per cent of the shares in FI Holding A/S for a net price of EUR 950 million and on September 29, 2004, the acquisition of FIH was approved by the Icelandic and Danish Financial Supervisory Authorities.
During the period of the Icelandic ownership, FIH made a strategic expansion from its traditional corporate lending business into investment banking activities and to this end established two new business units: Capital Markets and Corporate Finance. Furthermore, in 2008, FIH established NETBANK PRO, a Web-based retail savings platform.
As a result of Kaupthing going into receivership in October 2008, the FIH shares owned by Kaupthing FIH were pledged as collateral with the Icelandic central bank. Being ringfenced from Kaupthing by Danish regulation, FIH continued to operate as a Danish stand-alone bank. Since October 2008, the Icelandic owners had been attempting to sell FIH, which materialised on September 19, 2010 when the consortium composed of ATP, PFA, Folksam and CPDyvig announced that it had agreed to purchase FIH. Completion of the acquisition took place on January 6, 2011.
From Wikipedia’s article on FIH Erhvervsbank A/S, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4