Partial demerger of Pohjola Bank plc registered in the Trade Register


Pohjola Bank plc
Stock Exchange Release
30 December 2015, 8.30 am

Partial demerger of Pohjola Bank plc registered in the Trade Register

Today on 30 December 2015, the execution of the partial demerger of Pohjola Bank plc was registered in the Trade Register. Pohjola Bank plc's extraordinary general meeting adopted the demerger plan on 22 October 2015.

In its business, Pohjola Bank plc will concentrate on Treasury and Corporate Banking, Equities and Non-life Insurance. All other Pohjola Bank plc businesses transferred to a new OP Financial Group company that was established in the partial demerger. The transferred business includes wealth management and card and property management operations.

Pohjola Group is still making plans for restructuring under which the Non-life Insurance segment would be transferred from Pohjola Group to direct ownership of OP Cooperative. In addition, Pohjola is assessing the option of separating Treasury to become a subsidiary wholly owned by OP Cooperative.

The underlying reasons behind the partial demerger include increasing operational efficiency, simplifying the group structure and streamlining administration. OP Financial Group's banking operations in their entirety will continue to fall within the scope of joint and several liability. The joint and several liability in OP Financial Group is based on the Act on the Amalgamation of Deposit Banks (599/2010) whereby OP Cooperative, the central cooperative, and its member credit institutions are liable for each other's debts and commitments.

Pohjola Bank plc
Carina Geber-Teir
Executive Vice President, Corporate Communications
For more information, please contact:
OP Communications, media contacts, tel. +358 50 523 9904

DISTRIBUTION
NASDAQ Helsinki
LSE London Stock Exchange
SIX Swiss Exchange
Major media
op.fi, pohjola.com

Pohjola is part of Finland's leading customer-owned financial services group OP Financial Group. It provides its customers with banking, non-life insurance and asset management services. Pohjola acts as OP's central bank and is responsible, together with OP Mortgage Bank, for OP's funding in money and capital markets. As laid down in the applicable law, Pohjola, its parent company OP Cooperative and other OP Financial Group member credit institutions are ultimately jointly and severally liable for each other's debts and commitments. Joint  liability within OP Financial Group is based on the Finnish Act on Amalgamations of Deposit Banks (Laki talletuspankkien yhteenliittymästä)
www.pohjola.com