The world’s largest sovereign-wealth fund is going after the now-defunct Silicon Valley Bank, its management and the Wall Street advisers that aided its rise, the Wall Street Journal reported. Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages Norway’s $1.5 trillion wealth fund, and other former SVB shareholders attacked the failed bank in a legal filing late Tuesday. The filing accused SVB and its executives of concealing the lender’s ailing health from public view, while also ignoring warnings about risks from rising interest rates.
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Norway
The volume of commercial property transactions in the Nordic region fell to the lowest level in a decade last year, in an ominous sign for landlords needing to offload assets to bolster their finances, Bloomberg News reported. In 2023, only €20 billion ($21.9 billion) of properties traded hands in the region, property adviser Colliers International Group Inc said in an emailed statement. Activity tumbled by 64% in Finland compared with a year earlier, while volumes in Norway, Sweden and Denmark slumped by slightly more than half.
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Norway's $1.5 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, said on Friday it has been appointed by a U.S. court to co-lead an ongoing U.S. securities class action relating to the now-bankrupt Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Reuters reported. SVB's collapse in March was the trigger for the worst banking shock since the 2008 global financial crisis, sending bank stocks globally on a wild ride.
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The Norwegian Competition Authority is moving to block Norwegian Air’s plan to buy regional airline Widerøe, in the latest sign that European regulators are taking a tougher stance against the latest wave of airline mergers, Airline Weekly reported. The regulator highlighted the reduction in competition to two airlines from three on many domestic routes in the country amid reasons for its objections to the 1.13 billion Norwegian kroner ($104 million) deal.
The Nordic construction industry is facing further challenges as two of the region’s largest builders, YIT Oyj and Skanska AB, report difficulties in selling properties, Bloomberg News reported. YIT Oyj has seen a 30% increase in completed unsold apartments in the third quarter, while Skanska AB experienced a more than 50% decline in quarterly profit due to a weak market outlook in Sweden, Norway, and Finland. This indicates a worsening situation for the construction industry in the Nordic region.
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A U.S. bankruptcy court judge granted SAS AB’s request to speed the process of paying $3 million to advisers of the Scandinavian airline’s investor group, keeping its restructuring on track over opposition from creditor Apollo Global Management Inc., Bloomberg News reported. Judge Michael E. Wiles set an Oct. 12 hearing on a motion to expedite reimbursement to advisers to the group led by Air France-KLM and Castlelake LP, who are set to take control of SAS as it exits from chapter 11 protection.
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Purecod has entered bankruptcy proceedings and is in the middle of a major restructuring, according to the company’s CEO, Eirik Jørs, SeafoodSource.com reported. Founded in 2020, Sykkylven, Norway-based Purecod was granted a permit to farm a maximum of 3,120 metric tons standing biomass of Atlantic cod at sea in closed pens at Røneset, Storfjorden, Norway from the Møre and Romsdal county municipality in March 2022. Its permits remain active, though the company never began farming fish. Now, the company is four weeks into the first phase of what Jørs described as a two-step bankruptcy process.
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Norway’s central bank raised borrowing costs to the highest level since the 2008 financial crisis and signaled it still plans another quarter-point hike in the current tightening cycle, Bloomberg News reported. Norges Bank lifted its key deposit rate on Thursday by 25 basis points to 4%, the 12th increase since September 2021, as forecast by all analysts in a Bloomberg survey. It said the rate “will most likely be raised further in September,” with Governor Ida Wolden Bache keeping the door open for further hikes, depending on incoming data.
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Norwegian Air has agreed to buy domestic peer Wideroe for 1.13 billion crowns ($106 million) as the reborn airline looks to strengthen its position in its home region, Reuters reported. The deal is the latest reshuffling in the Norwegian airline sector that saw newcomer Flyr file for bankruptcy in January having failed to raise enough cash to survive the winter season. The two companies, which have been collaborating on routes since last year, will continue to operate independently, but the networks will be more closely integrated in the future, Norwegian Air CEO Geir Karlsen said.
The storied brokerage firm of Lorentzen & Co. has declared bankruptcy after years of losses, changing its name and moving in a new direction after more than 100 years in operation, the Maritime Executive reported. Lorentzen & Co. was founded in 1919 by four brothers from the prominent Norwegian shipping family of the same name. It has had a concentration in dry bulk broking, but has had staff working in other segments as well. Its operations have lost money in recent years, and in 2022 it announced that it would be downsizing its team.
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