The rating agency Moody’s affirmed LHV Pank a credit rating of Baa1

Moody’s Investors Service renewed the credit rating of AS LHV Pank. The investment-grade credit rating with a stable outlook was affirmed at the same level as a year ago.

Ratings assigned to AS LHV Pank by Moody’s Investors Service:

• Long- and short-term counterparty risk assessment of A3(cr)/Prime-2(cr)
• Long- and short-term counterparty risk rating of A3/Prime-2
• Foreign- and local currency long-term bank deposit rating Baa1
• Foreign- and local currency short-term bank deposit rating Prime-2
• Baseline credit assessment (BCA) baa3
• Adjusted baseline credit assessment baa3
• The long-term deposit rating carries a stable outlook

When assigning the ratings, Moody’s assessed the quality and creditworthiness of the obligations of LHV Pank as well as the condition of the Estonian banking sector. With these ratings, Moody’s confirms that the financial profile of LHV is strong, as is its ability to serve the assumed obligations.

Additional information: www.moodys.com

LHV Group is the largest domestic financial group and capital provider in Estonia. LHV Group's key subsidiaries are LHV Pank and LHV Varahaldus. There are over 430 people working at LHV and 202,000 clients are using its banking services. Pension funds managed by LHV have about 177,000 active clients.

LHV Pank and Danske Bank finalised the purchase-sale transaction for Danske Bank's private customer loan portfolio

On 23 November 2019, AS LHV Pank and Danske Bank A/S finalised the transaction, under which AS LHV Pank acquired the private customer loan portfolio of Danske Bank A/S Estonia branch (in liquidation) and the included leasing and collateral agreements and other related agreements in the form of the transfer of the unit.

As a result of the transaction, LHV Pank’s loan portfolio increased by EUR 393 million. The estimated final financial impact from the transaction does not differ from the previously published forecast.

The transaction concerned approx. 10,000 private clients. As of today, all valid credit agreements concluded by these clients have been transferred to LHV Pank by Danske Bank. Also, all documents and client data, including personal data related to the loan portfolio, have been transferred. More than 90% of the portfolio consists of home loan agreements; the loan portfolio also contained a small number of consumer loans, leases and student loans. Together with the unit, LHV Pank took also over the employment contracts of four employees.

Over the weekend, Danske Bank and LHV Pank notified all clients associated with the deal about the transfer of their agreements, and also informed the related borrowers, co-applicants, sureties and known owners of collateral about the change. In addition, cooperation partners and related insurance firms were also informed.

The transfer has been made as convenient as possible for the clients. This means that LHV Pank has created a personal account for each client who has a loan agreement, to which the client should henceforth redirect their loan payments. The loans were transferred to LHV automatically and there is no need for the clients to go through a refinancing process. Signing new loan agreements with LHV is not necessary. Mortgages associated with the loans will be formalised in the name of LHV and no further costs will be incurred by clients in connection with that. In the case of lease agreements, the lessor and owner of the object of the lease will be LHV Pank.

In the future, the client should redirect their loan payments to the personal account opened at LHV Pank, instead of their previous account. Following the transfer, all requests to amend the agreements relating to the transfer should be referred to LHV. Following the transfer, the service fees of LHV Pank, as per the price list, shall apply to all clients.

AS LHV Pank and Danske Bank A/S announced their intention to conclude a sales transaction for the Danske Bank unit involved with private loans on 3 June 2019 (stock exchange announcement) and signed the purchase-sale contract on 5 June 2019 (stock exchange announcement). In order to finalise the deal, LHV Pank added a deposits worth EUR 450 million to the existing deposits during the summer months. To raise additional capital in connection with the transaction, AS LHV Group organised an issue of subordinated bonds (stock exchange announcement), an issue of bonds belonging to Tier 1 own funds (stock exchange announcement) and an additional share issue (stock exchange announcement).

LHV Group is the largest domestic financial group and capital provider in Estonia. LHV Group's key subsidiaries are LHV Pank and LHV Varahaldus. LHV employs over 420 people. LHV’s banking services are used by over 192,000 clients, and pension funds managed by LHV have more than 176,000 active clients.