Polaris, Acathia to buy Danica Pension Sweden from Danske Bank

Nordic private equity fund Polaris and the German private equity fund Acathia have agreed to purchase Danica Pension Sweden, the pension business of Danske Bank A/S.

The bank, Denmark's largest, announced the agreement Tuesday, five days after revealing in a statement that it was informing the market of its "negotiations with a specific buyer" following a media inquiry. The talks were "ongoing, and there can be no certainty that a transaction will be concluded," the Copenhagen-based bank said at the time.

The bank in its news release also said the bank and Danica Pension Sweden will continue their business partnership on the distribution of pension products in Sweden.

"Danica Pension Sweden has seen strong developments in the past several years and has created good solutions for our customers," said Jacob Aarup-Andersen, member of Danske Bank's executive board, in the news release. "With this transaction, Danica Pension Sweden will continue, together with its new owners, to further develop the company ... We will continue to focus on further developing the best pension solutions in Denmark and Norway, where our business models are more aligned and there are synergies across the markets."

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Danish financial daily Borsen on Friday said Polaris was set to make an offer in excess of 2 billion kroner ($305 million).

Danske's acting chief executive, Jesper Nielsen, told Bloomberg last week that the bank was looking into exiting some non-core assets, although he said such divestments were not viewed by Danske as a way to generate more money to cover potential fines as a result of finding itself embroiled in one of Europe's worst-ever money laundering cases.

Bloomberg contributed to this story.