Financial Statement 2000
Record profit for NIB in 2000
The Nordic Investment Bank reports a good annual profit and steady progress for 2000, its twenty-fifth year of operation. Net interest income rose to EUR 156 million (1999: 140 million). The annual profit, the biggest in the Bank’s history so far, amounted to EUR 130 million (1999: 106 million).
New lending totalled EUR 1,101 million (1999: 1,322 million). The stock of loans outstanding at year-end rose to EUR 9,288 million (1999: 8,854 million). The Bank’s borrowing in capital markets during the year equalled EUR 1,865 million (1999: 2,478 million). NIB bonds outstanding at year-end totalled EUR 11,376 million (1999: 11,336 million).
Total assets at year-end amounted to EUR 13,900 million (1999: 13,337 million) and equity equalled EUR 1,326 million (1999: 1,220 million). A dividend of EUR 35 million of the annual profit for 1999 was paid to the Bank’s owners, the Nordic countries. For 2000 the Board of Directors proposes a dividend of EUR 39 million.
The quality of NIB’s loan portfolio and of its financial counterparts is as a whole at a very high level. NIB did not experience any credit losses during the period, but a provision of EUR 3,1 million was made for anticipated loan losses.
During the year the Bank participated in financing nearly 60 major investment projects and credit programmes in the Nordic countries. A large proportion of the loans was for cross-border company acquisitions and start-ups in the Nordic area. Manufacturing industry remains the biggest sector where the Bank’s Nordic lending is concerned.
Swedish customers again accounted for the biggest share, some 38 per cent, of the total stock of Nordic loans outstanding. Finnish customers accounted for 27 per cent at year-end, Denmark 14%, Norway 13% and Iceland 8%.
NIB has granted credit lines to local banks in all five Nordic countries, aimed at contributing long-term loans for the financing of SMEs. More than one-fifth of Nordic lending was channelled in this way to intermediaries for secondary lending to SMEs.
As regards NIB’s international lending, there was a growth of loan disbursements to projects in the emerging markets, above all of Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America. At present NIB has loans outstanding in more than 30 countries outside the Nordic area. Demand for new loans outside the Nordic area was greatest in telecommunications.
Increasing environmental projects in the neighbouring regions
“The financing of environmental investments has an important role in the Bank’s operations” says President Jón Sigurdsson. Last year NIB’s credit exposure through environmental projects totalled EUR 1.6 billion. Nearly EUR 500 million of this sum concerns projects outside the Nordic area, mainly in the Baltic Sea region.
Jón Sigurdsson says the Bank’s operations in the neighbouring regions to the Nordic countries, and especially in the Baltic Sea and Barents regions, are now focusing on environmental projects, mainly to reduce cross-border water and air pollution. In co-operation with other international financial institutions and the Nordic bilateral authorities concerned, a project is being prepared which will improve water and sewage treatment, and develop the local water utility in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
During the year a loan agreement was signed with the St. Petersburg water utility, with the main objective to improve sewage treatment in the Sestroretsk area, which abuts on the Baltic Sea. In 2000 NIB was given a separate mandate by the water utility in St. Petersburg to lead a study, financed by the Swedish and Finnish authorities, on the completion, financing and development of an implementation strategy for the city’s south western wastewater plant. This project is of urgent importance for the Baltic Sea environment, since it concerns the treatment of wastewater from a population of one and a half million.
The Bank has long been co-operating with Russian and Nordic firms and authorities—the Norwegian Environment Ministry not least—on a project to modernise the badly polluted nickel works in Pechenga on the Kola Peninsula. The project is expected to lead to a considerable reduction of sulphur dioxide emissions in the northernmost parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland as well as Russia.
NIB’s Annual Report 2001 is available here (PDF).
NIB’s key figures for 2000
| (in EUR million) | 2000 | 1999 |
| Net interest income | 156 | 140 |
| Profit | 130 | 106 |
| Loans disbursed | 1,101 | 1,322 |
| Loans agreed | 1,026 | 1,438 |
| New debt issues | 1,865 | 2,478 |
| Loans outstanding | 9,288 | 8,854 |
| Debts evidenced by certificates | 11,376 | 11,336 |
| Net liquidity | 2,913 | 2,781 |
| Total assets | 13,900 | 13,337 |
| Number of employees | 129 | 131 |