The encyclopedia · Finance & Accounting · Financial decision · 1992–1997
Sweden's Securum sold 98% of a crisis bank's bad assets within five years
After Sweden guaranteed its banks in 1992, bad loans moved into Securum and Retriva, which held and sold them patiently — disposing of 98% by 1997.
Securum AB · Retriva · Swedish government
the move
When Sweden's property boom collapsed in the early 1990s, banks that had lent against real estate reported huge losses. In 1992 the government announced an open-ended guarantee of all bank liabilities to stop the crisis from spreading.
Nordbanken's bad loans went into Securum, Gota Bank's into Retriva; together they took on SEK 112 billion of assets written down to SEK 66 billion, financed with SEK 28 billion of equity and SEK 14 billion of guarantees. Their job was preservation, not speed.
Securum and Retriva managed the portfolio through specialized units and sold it through private deals and IPOs as markets recovered. When Securum closed in 1997, it had disposed of 98% of its assets — five years, not the decade originally expected.
why it works
- Ring-fencing bad assets let the healthy banks keep lending through the crisis.
- A long horizon avoided panic sales when property prices were at their floor.
- Professional asset managers did the restructuring that a bank balance sheet could not.
- The explicit government guarantee removed the run risk that forced hasty decisions.
what transfers
A blanket guarantee stops the panic; a separately funded bad bank with a long horizon turns the cleanup into asset management — sell patiently, and the recovery pays for the rescue.
what came after
Securum wound down in 1997 and repaid a large share of the state's capital; Sweden's formula of blanket guarantees plus bad-bank separation became the reference case for banking crisis management, studied by countries from Japan to the US.
references
- Swedish AMCs: Securum and Retriva
- The Use of Asset Management Companies in the Resolution of Banking Crises: Cross-Country Experience
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