Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- DnB NOR ASA, Norway’s largest bank, said it plans to raise 14 billion kroner ($2.41 billion) in a rights offer, the last major Nordic lender to raise capital since the global credit crisis began last year.

The sale of shares to existing shareholders, supported by owners holding 48 percent of DnB’s shares and underwritten by a group of lenders, will increase DnB NOR’s Tier 1 capital ratio to 11.3 percent, the Oslo-based bank said in a statement today.

DnB NOR offer follows that of Nordea Bank AB, the Nordic region’s largest lender. In the past 12 months Swedbank AB and SEB AB also raised funds through rights offers as loan losses rose in the Baltic countries and their Nordic home markets because of the economic slowdown. With DnB’s share sale, Norway’s and Sweden’s largest banks have together raised $12.2 billion.

“This transaction will enhance our ability to meet our customers’ future financing needs while making us better prepared to satisfy anticipated higher capital adequacy requirements in the banking sector,” Rune Bjerke, DnB’s chief executive officer, said in the statement. “In addition, it will enable a swifter return to our long-term dividend policy.”

DnB NOR advanced 2.65 kroner, or 4.1 percent, to 66.7 kroner as of 9:20 a.m. on the Oslo stock exchange. Shares of the Norwegian bank have more than doubled in value so far this year, making the lender the best performing major Nordic bank.

In contrast with many European banks such as Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, Germany’s Commerzbank AG and France’s Societe Generale SA, Norway’s and Sweden’s largest banks have so far not relied on the state for direct funding. The Swedish government participated in Nordea’s rights offer because it’s the bank’s largest shareholder, and Norway, which owns 34 percent of DnB NOR, will also take part in the Oslo-based bank’s share sale.

‘Healthy Sign’

“I regard the issue as a healthy sign both for DnB NOR and the financial market,” Sylvia Brustad, Norway’s trade and industry minister, said in a statement on the state’s Web site. The sale will increase the bank’s “financial robustness in a way that gives equal opportunity for all shareholders to participate.”

The rights offer will bring the bank’s leverage ratio, at 5.5 percent after the rights offer, in-line with Swedbank’s and “well-ahead” of other Nordic banks, said Fridtjof Berents, an analyst at Arctic Securities in Oslo.

The offer “was in line with our expectations that DnB would strengthen its capital base and as the deadline for applications from the state finance fund expires on Sept. 30, an announcement was expected” Berents said by phone.

Profit Falls

Second-quarter profit at DnB NOR dropped to 1.2 billion kroner from 3.3 billion kroner a year earlier after writedowns on loans and guarantees rose to 2.32 billion kroner from 275 million kroner. Loan losses and provisions for bad loans at Nordic banks are soaring, as the three Baltic states experience the steepest recession among the European Union’s 27 members.

DnB reiterated it will reach a pretax profit before writedowns of 20 billion kroner in 2010 and that loan losses this year will be between 8 billion and 10 billion kroner.

Shareholders including the Savings Bank Foundation and the National Insurance Fund will participate in the rights offer, DnB NOR said. The remaining part of the share sale is underwritten by Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc., it said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Niklas Magnusson in Stockholm at nmagnusson1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 25, 2009 03:33 EDT