Baltic impairments cause 99 percent profit drop for SEB

Swedish banking group Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB) has announced a third quarter profit of 2.5 million, some 99 percent down on last years figure of 187 million, due largely to write-offs in the Baltic region. The bank, a major player in Scandinavian and Baltic leasing, reported 323 million in credit losses over the quarter, with most attributable to loan books in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The Lithuanian arm of SEB Bank, for example, reported a net loss of 181.6 million for the first nine months of this year, accrued from a leasing and credit portfolio in the country worth over 6 billion