Baltic, Banks, Financial Services, Funds, Good for Business, Mergers and take-overs

"The Commission concluded that the proposed transaction would raise no competition concerns, given its limited impact on the market structure," the EU's executive body said in a press release on Tuesday. 

The transaction was examined under the simplified merger review procedure, it said.

The deal is yet to be cleared by the European Central Bank. 

It was reported last September that a consortium led by Blackstone Group was buying a 60% stake in Estonia-registered Luminor and would own the bank jointly with its current shareholders, Nordea Bank and DNB. 

Luminor said the value of the deal was 1 bn euros.  

Additionally, Blackstone entered into an agreement with Nordea to purchase its remaining 20% stake within the next few years, it said. 

Created in 2017 through the merger of Nordea's and DNB's operations in the Baltics, Luminor is one of the region's biggest financial services providers with a 23% lending market share, over 15 bn euros in assets, 3,000 employees and 64 customer-service centers across the region. 

Blackstone Group is one of the world's largest investment companies with 439 bn US dollars' (378.9 bn euros) worth of assets under management. It invests in private equity, real estate, public debt and equity and other funds on a global basis.