Yesterday I watched CEO Sampsa Laine’s “Inderes interview” from last August (Alisa Pankki H1’25: Alkuvuosi jäi pettymykseksi - Inderes). He spoke very consistently and realistically about past events and events aiming for the future. After the video, I read Alisa Bank’s press releases, events, and the Inderes forum to see what has happened in the real world since the interview. Indeed, those good positive things that Sampsa previously highlighted in the video have started to happen at Alisa Bank. And at what pace! A man of his word and deeds.
The volume growth of invoice financing for corporate customers (which is now part of the core business after the sale of non-core assets) is increasingly important for the bank to be able to turn its results positive again. I personally cannot think of a single better, larger, or more international partner for Alisa than Nordea. Nordea is known to Alisa’s management, and they know what Nordea wants from Alisa in the future. Alisa’s CEO has had a long career at Nordea and Danske Bank in various leadership roles. As a partner of Nordea, growing volumes and internationalization depend solely on their own actions.
Alisa’s market cap is only ~33 million € and now 51 million € will flow into the cash register after the sale of non-core assets. All resources can be focused on the core business.
After all the various considerations, forum information, my research, interviews, and insider trades, I decided to join this. I see a lot of upside in this case
Good reflections, and I largely agree. The strategy finally makes real sense after a long time, and the business model should also be scalable. The most essential question is therefore the growth of invoice financing that you also brought up, and especially the potential brought by Nordea. This is not an automatic jackpot in my opinion, because if I have understood correctly, the cooperation volumes come, as it were, through references. Nordea thus tips off its smaller customers who need invoice financing about the possibility of Alisa’s invoice financing service, and after this, the customer makes the application themselves. At the same time, this is a service that has not practically been available to smaller customers before (a large bank’s processes are quite rigid), so there is a genuine opportunity to create a “new” market here. At the same time, it is good to remember that the business is still loss-making, so quite robust growth should be achieved for the case to become attractive at the current share price.
Regarding the transaction amount and cash consideration, in the case of a bank, this has no direct impact on market value, as solvency regulation defines the framework for distributable funds. This will, of course, provide liquidity and solvency, so growth will certainly not be hindered by these.
In its announcement, the company stated that it expects a positive earnings impact from the transaction, which would indeed suggest a transaction price exceeding the book value. This is quite surprising, as Alisa has previously commented that the consumer finance loan portfolio has poor profitability.
To this, I would point out that the monthly fee is related to a business account, and the 63,000 customers you used most likely consist mainly of private customers, for whom basic banking services are free. For comparison: In Finland, there are just over 400,000 SMEs in total.
