IN BRIEF...

Danish bank is world’s best FX market place

More than 4,000 professional investors from around the globe have judged Den-mark’s Saxo Bank, a leading internet bank, the world’s best foreign exchange market place. The result was part of FX Week magazine’s Best Bank Awards 2006. Last year, Saxo Bank was ranked 9th but this year surged to the top, passing giants like UBS, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and HSBC.

Eric Michelsen, director of Saxo Bank says: “The most important thing to us is that we were chosen by the investors. It is the market itself which decides their choice. But we are also proud that even though we were up against the heavyweights which have dominated the industry for so long, we were still judged the best.” Saxo Bank is headquartered in Den-mark, with operating offices in London and Singapore and an IT development centre in St. Petersburg, Russia. The bank employs more than 675 people from 40 countries to service its clients around the world.

Investments by Danish businesses hit new record

A new survey by Danske Bank reveals that Danish businesses are investing like never before. This year, an unprecedented DKK 177 bn (USD 30 bn) will be spent on new machinery, equipment and IT. This corresponds to investing DKK 88,000 (USD 14,960) in each of the country’s approx. 2 million private sector workplaces. The respective investment totals for 2004 and 2005 were DKK 138 bn (USD 23.5 bn) and DKK 155 bn (USD 26.4 bn).

According to Peter Birch Sørensen, professor of economics at Copenhagen University, the sizeable increase in investment will allay future risks of the economy becoming overheated: “It exerts a doubly positive effect, since companies will be able to collectively produce more with the same total workforce.”

Norman Foster designs hotel for Tivoli

Following a three way competition, legendary amusement park Tivoli in Copenhagen, has chosen a design by world-renowned Sir Norman Foster for a new hotel and apartment complex to be built on a corner site of Tivoli’s ground adjacent to the City Hall Square in the centre of Copenhagen.

Foster + Partner’s eye-catching design respects the existing skyline of predominantly single spire buildings, its sole 102 metre high tower being 3 metres shorter than the nearby City Hall spire. The complex will include a 150 bedroom luxury hotel and 50 exclusive apartments for private ownership. Tivoli is currently negotiating with the Four Seasons chain to run the new hotel in the complex, which is expected to be completed by 2010.

Unemployment hits all-time low

Unemployment in Denmark has never been lower than in September 2006. In that month a mere 117,100 people were registered with the unemployment funds, the first time the figure has been below 120,000 in recent memory.

The flipside of the coin, according to economists, is the risk of the economy overheating. Bottlenecks have also started appearing when new jobs need to be filled, which has led to increasing use of labour from Sweden, Poland and Germany.

The Nordic region’s largest bank

Danske Bank has become the Nordic region’s largest bank after acquiring Finland’s Sampo Bank. Danske Bank put EUR 4 bn on the table for the Finnish bank, which has a 15% market share in Finland and large branches in the three Baltic states. Danske Bank has already acquired banks in Norway, Sweden, Northern Ireland and Ire-land. With the acquisition of Sampo Bank, Danske Bank has a total balance of DKK 2,704 bn, corresponding to EUR 363 bn.

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