Paper: Did Erkki Raasuke and Swedbank save the Estonian state in 2009?
24.04.2012, 15:27Records released by the ministry of finance show that at the beginning of 2009 when the Estonian state was asking a loan from banks in Estonia, the only bank that agreed to lend money to the state was Swedbank, writes Äripäev.
The positive decision by Swedbank to lend 50 million euros to the state was made two months after Erkki Raasuke, former head of Swedbank in Baltics, had been nominated finance director of the whole Swedbank Group.
Raasuke who left the post of finance director of Swedbank Group earlier this year has now taken a job in the Estonian public sector as acting head of the National Road Administration.
Initially, the state asked banks to lend it 150 million euros. Only one large bank in Estonia agreed to consider the loan as a syndicate while three banks in Estonia refused to lend money to the state.
In May 2009, the state signed a two-year loan contract with Swedbank in the amount of 50 million euros.
Ivar Padar who was finance minister at that time said in comment that he is not 100% sure, but he remembers that the three banks that refused to lend money to the Estonian state were SEB, Nordea and Sampo.
“I should look into the paper and see what the banks in question where, but it seems logical that the first for us to contact were the banks that were active in Estonia,” he said.