Nordea initiates negotiations with unions on staff cost reduction

Nordea's ambition in the New Normal is to maintain its place among the top-
league banks in Europe. The increased costs imposed by new global regulation
will create challenges for all banks. Nordea has decided to take early action to
safeguard its strong position on funding and customer relations. That will
require Nordea's return on equity to increase, by higher efficiency on cost as
well as capital and use of risk weighted assets. As a step in those plans,
negotiations with trade unions in the four Nordic countries have been initiated
on reducing the total number of employees.

- To increase efficiency is never easy. But we will act early and from a
position of strength. By initiating measures to increase profitability early, we
safeguard our good rating, competitive funding and thus our ability to offer
products and services at the right price to our customers. The alternative - to
wait and see - is not an option, says Christian Clausen, President and CEO of
Nordea.

Nordea has earlier announced its ambitions under the new global requirements
regarding capital, liquidity and cost. The assessment is that the best banks in
Europe will reach return on equity levels of around 15 per cent, and Nordea's
ambition is to be in that group. In the report for the second quarter 2011, it
was stated that in the autumn the bank would "implement plans to contain cost
growth in the later part of 2011, and thereafter keep costs largely unchanged
for a prolonged period of time".

As a step in those plans, Nordea has today initiated the negotiations with trade
unions on reducing the number of employees in Nordea. The reduction follows last
years' initiatives to increase efficiency and will lead to a stricter
profitability prioritisation in business going forward.

To reach the anticipated cost efficiency and profitability, the required
reduction of employees in 2011 and 2012 is about 2,000, of which between 500 and
650 in Denmark, Finland and Sweden, respectively, and between 200 and 300 in
Norway. Today the total number of employees in Nordea is more than 34,000.

The ambition is to reach a large share of the reduction in staff cost through
natural turnover and voluntary agreements. The stipulated time for the formal
trade union negotiations is different from country to country, and all processes
are expected to be finalised in November.

In addition, Nordea will continue with other cost and capital efficiency
measures in the autumn, and will come back with cost savings and restructuring
cost estimates.


For further information:
Rune Kibsgaard Sjøhelle, Head of External Communications, +47 40200210
Helena Östman, Head of Communications Sweden, +46 70 200 40 50

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