Swedish bank wants to take over Baltic banks

SEB holds large stakes in Lithuania's Vilniaus Bankas (42 percent), Latvia's Unibanka (50.5 percent), and Estonia's Uhispank (50.2 percent), which in turn owns Latvia's Saules Banka. The bank plans to remove all three banks from the stock exchange by offering to buy all floating shares. SEB President Lars Thunell said that the bank's plans are a "logical step" in its regional strategy, ELTA added. Shares for the three banks all closed significantly higher on the news of SEB's plans.