Indonesian group buys 9.9 pct of Denmark’s Saxo Bank: Reuters

Indonesia’s Sinar Mas Group has acquired 9.9 per cent of Saxo Bank for 951 million Danish crowns, valuing the investment bank at 9.6 billion crowns ($1.45 billion), the Danish firm said on Friday.

The two founders of the Copenhagen-based firm, Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen, have together sold a seven percent stake in the business.

In addition, other minority shareholders exercised their ‘Tag-Along Right’ to join the transaction and sold a combined 2.9 per cent of the shares.

Sinar Mas has a number of businesses including in the agriculture and paper industries as well as financial services and real estate.

Saxo said Christensen and Fournais continue to own 52 percent of the bank’s equity and in cooperation with the U.S. private equity firm TPG Capital remain the controlling shareholders.

The bank also said it had booked a loss of 485 million crowns for the first six months in 2015, hit by a loss of 700 million crowns related to the Swiss National Bank decision to remove the exchange rate cap on the Swiss franc and the euro in January.