Swedish Lender Is Europe’s ‘Safest Bank’—And One of the Most Shorted
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Swedish lender Svenska Handelsbanken AB has been crowned the safest commercial bank in Europe. Short sellers seem to think otherwise.
Handelsbanken is the second most-shorted bank in the Bloomberg Europe 500 Banks and Financial Services Index after Italy’s Mediobanca, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. The Stockholm-based lender’s large exposure to Sweden’s ailing real estate market partly explains why some investors are taking a dim view of it, several analysts have said.