Shares and shareholders

Major shareholdings

The Bank’s listing on Nasdaq Iceland and Nasdaq Stockholm took place on 15 June following an initial public offering of 28.7% of shares in the Bank, placed mostly with investors in Iceland, the United States, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia and Continental Europe. It was the first listing of an Icelandic bank on the main market in Iceland since 2008. During the year and prior to the IPO, Icelandic State Financial Investments (ISFI) sold its shareholding and the Bank is now fully privately owned. The IPO had a big impact on the shareholder base, but since the IPO there have been no major changes to the largest shareholdings. At the end of the year, Kaupskil ehf. remained the largest shareholder with a 32.67% shareholding and was the only shareholder with more than a 10% share. At year-end the Bank had more than 6,000 shareholders. 

According to a decision by the Financial Supervisory Authority from 22 September 2017 the total voting rights of Kaupthing ehf, through Kaupskil ehf, and Taconic Capital Advisors LP and related parties, through TCA New Sidecar S.á.r.l, are restricted to 33% of total voting rights in the Bank.

More than half of shares are owned by Icelandic shareholders, while other holdings come mostly from the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and Sweden. It should be noted, however, that the largest shareholder is the Icelandic holding company Kaupthing ehf, through its subsidiary Kaupskil ehf, which is almost solely owned by international investors.

Trading and performance

Since the IPO, the traded volume has been very similar on Nasdaq Iceland and Nasdaq Stockholm, with a total average of 2.5 million shares traded daily.

The share price rose following the IPO and Q2 results. However, between September and year-end the share price decreased. The decrease can mostly be explained by turbulent markets, both domestically and internationally, dividend payments in September and uncertainties in the aviation sector. The uncertainty in the aviation sector was mostly due to the default of an airline, resulting in impairments at the Bank, and the financial difficulties of another airline, which has been a concern for the tourist sector in Iceland. If however, share price performance is compared with the performance of bank indices in the Nordics and Europe, Arion Bank’s share price has outperformed the market since the IPO.

Dividend and share buyback

In February 2018, the Bank acquired 190,000,000, or 9.5%, of its shares in a transaction with Kaupskil for a total of ISK 17.1 billion. This was followed by a dividend payment in March, making the total amount for these transactions ISK 25 billion. The authority to buy back such shares and pay dividends was provided by a temporary provision in the Bank’s Articles of Association, which was approved at the same shareholders’ meeting in February. In September, another dividend payment of ISK 10 billion was approved by an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting, representing 5 ISK per share. Dividends and share buybacks therefore totalled more than ISK 33 billion during the year, taking the Bank’s own shares into account.

The Bank’s medium-term targets state that future dividend will be 50% of the accumulated net earnings attributable to shareholders of Arion Bank hf., either dividends or buyback of the Bank’s shares or a combination of both. Additional distributions will be considered when Arion Bank’s capital levels are above the minimum requirements set by the regulators in addition to the Bank’s management buffer 

Distribution of shares by size of holding

Source: Monitor by Modular Finance AB. Compiled and processed data from various sources, including Euroclear, Nasdaq, Morningstar and the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (Finansinspektionen).

Arion Bank's share since IPO

1) Since the date of the IPO, June 15 2018
2) SDR = Swedish depository receipt, one SDR represents one share