Banks, EU – Baltic States, Financial Services

That exceeded the average 2.7 billion-krona estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

 The result "reflects that corporate activity gained momentum towards the end of the year and that asset quality clearly improved following the Baltic stabilization," Chief Executive Officer Annika Falkengren said in Friday's statement.

Improving asset quality in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania allowed SEB in the fourth quarter to recoup 419 million kronor in bad-loan provisions for the region, following credit impairments of 3.06 billion kronor in the year-earlier period. SEB and Swedbank AB, the largest banks in the Baltic States, suffered soaring loan losses last year after the three former Soviet countries had the deepest recessions in the European Union. In the third quarter, SEB reported its first operating profit in the region in two years, writes LETA/ELTA, referring to Bloomberg.

SEB’s Estonian units ended the year 2010 with a profit of 49.1 million EUR versus a loss of 80 million EUR in 2009, Postimees Online reports.

The operating revenues of SEB Eesti fell from 133.7 million EUR in 2009 to 124.2 million EUR. Operation costs were 66.2 million EUR versus 101.2 million EUR in 2009.

Loan loss allocations amount to 9.1 million EUR versus 112.5 million EUR in 2009.

The bank’s board chairman Riho Unt said that the strong result was based on effective cost cutting and growing activity of clients.

Unt said that since the second half of the year, loan projects for more than 200 million EUR have been constantly at works in the corporate banking side. The new housing loans volume grew by 24.7% in 2010. Deposits of companies and private individuals also grew by 12 and 8% respectively.

SEB Group in Latvia posted LVL 5.77 million profit in 2010, SEB banka Public Relations Department's head Agnese Strazda told the business information portal "Nozare.lv". The SEB Group's losses in 2009 were LVL 128.9 million.

The bank's profit before taxes and reserve for insecure loans in 2010 reached LVL 36.41 million, whilst in 2009 it was LVL 64.01 million.

The total amount of deposits at SEB exceeded LVL 1 billion as of December 31 – a 2% increase compared to 2009.

The total SEB loan portfolio in Latvia stood at LVL 2.19 billion – a 11% decrease compared to 2009.

SEB Group's operating income in 2010 was LVL 77.65 million. In the fourth quarter it was LVL 20.87 million – a 11% increase from the third quarter.

The bank's capital and reserves were LVL 227.89 million. The capital adequacy ratio was 16.09%, whereas liquidity ratio was 50.08% as of December 31.