Terra-Gruppen

Infobox Company
company_name = Terra-Gruppen AS
company_
company_type = Private
foundation = 1997
location = Oslo, Norway
key_people = Stein Ole Larsen (CEO)
Gabriel Block-Watne (Chairman)
area_served = Norway
industry = Financial services
products =
revenue =
operating_income =
net_income =
num_employees =
parent =
subsid =
homepage = [http://www.terra.as www.terra.as]
footnotes =

Terra-Gruppen, branded as Terra is an alliance between 78 Norwegian savings banks. The umbrella company provides a number of services that the small, independent banks are not able to provide by themselves. The services of Terra include securities, insurance and real estate agencies. The alliance has its offices in Oslo, Norway, and between the banks has total assets of NOK 130 billion.

ubsidiaries

* Terra Aktiv Eiendomsforvaltning (real estate agent)
* Terra BoligKredit (finance)
* Terra Eiendomsforvaltning (real estate agent)
* Terra Finans (finance)
* Terra Markets (securities, 66.73% ownership)
** Terra Fondsforvaltning (securities)
** Terra Kapitalforvaltning (securities)
** Terra Securities (securities)
* Terra Skadeforsikring (insurance)

History

Terra was founded in 1997 as Eika Gruppen as a consequence of the new trends in Norwegian banking. Previously there had been a massive merging among Norwegian savings banks, resulting in a number of regional savings banks, the largest of these being Sparebanken NOR that was a merger between a total of more than one hundred banks. In 1996 a lot of the other large, regional banks formed an alliance called SpareBank 1 to provide an umbrella for their operations. At the same time both the large savings banks and the commercial banks had two new trends; a new technological platform with online banking and the banks providing the total spectre of financial services, also including savings, securities and insurance. Also the small, independent savings banks who had not merged needed to provide these services. As a result they formed Eika Gruppen. Since 1997, Terra has acquired subsidiaries to perform a larger and larger sprectre of products.

In 2007, Terra-Gruppen received a major blow in the Terra Securities scandal where the bank had sold very questionable, complex and geared investments to eight municipalities. On November 28, 2007, Terra Securities lost all concessions from the Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway and filed for bankruptcy the same day. As a consequence, CEO Ola Sundt Ravnestad retired as CEO, following board member Sverre Leiro who had retired a week earlier. New CEO was Stein Ole Larsen.

Member banks

External links

* [http://www.terra.as Terra web site]