The first Friday of July marked the beginning of the trading day with the Helsinki Stock Exchange’s general index at 10,102.40 points. The most actively traded stock on this morning was Nordea, which saw a slight decrease of 0.4% in its stock price following a trial announcement in Denmark related to an old money laundering case.
The Danish authorities have been investigating Nordea’s anti-money laundering control procedures since 2015. As a result, the National Special Crimes Unit of the Danish Police (NSK) has announced that they will be taking legal action against the company. Although Nordea disagrees with the legal assessment and has three external legal assessments supporting their position, they have made provisions for anti-money laundering matters in the first quarter of 2019 and have been continuously evaluating it since then. Prior investigations by the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority did not find any evidence of money laundering or intentional violations of regulations, and the case was later transferred to the Danish Public Prosecutor’s Office for further investigation.
In other news, Kalmar experienced a 3.2% increase in its share price while Nightingale Health saw a decline of 1.3%. Relais Group also announced that its Swedish subsidiary STS Sydhamnen’s Trailer Service had acquired Swede Team Workshop Sweden.
Finnair reported an increase in passenger numbers for June compared to last year, with growth across various regions such as Asia and North America but decreased traffic from the Middle East. Finnair’s shares opened with a 3.2% increase in trading as well, with investors closely watching these developments to assess their impact on the market.
Overall, despite positive developments in some sectors such as airline traffic and acquisitions in vehicle aftermarket, negative developments were observed in banking and stock markets due to legal actions taken against Nordea by Danish authorities.
Investors were keeping a close eye on these developments to evaluate their impact on the market as they continue to trade throughout July and beyond.
