The financial sector will rank top positions on dividend lists also next spring

Translation: Original published in Finnish on 12/10/2025 at 08:00 am EET

For financial companies, 2025 has been very positive in terms of the operating environment, with strong capital market development and stabilized interest rates. However, the performance of the companies has been varying, and many companies we follow have suffered particularly from the subdued development of alternative investment returns (new sales and performance fees). Banks, on the other hand, have been playing a defensive game as interest rates fall. Overall, however, the sector's performance has been strong, although no record-breaking results have been seen on the sector scale.

Asset managers are known to be good dividend payers, as their business generally ties up capital very moderately, and investment needs and opportunities are very limited. Thus, companies can distribute a majority of their earnings to owners annually. In contrast, the banking business is very capital-intensive, but profit-sharing is abundant, similar to asset managers, due to modest organic growth opportunities resulting from the mature nature of the industry. Most of the companies we follow use dividends as their form of profit-sharing, and only Sampo and Nordea have distinguished themselves on a larger scale in share buybacks.

Next spring's dividend outlook for the sector is abundant as usual, and the companies top the list of highest dividend yields on Nasdaq.

Evli’s operating result has continued its strong development during 2025, and the company, together with Madatum, is competing for the title of the biggest success story in the asset management sector for 2025. Evli’s balance sheet is in excellent condition and slightly over-capitalized. As the earnings outlook for next year is also excellent, the company has no reason to be stingy with its profit-sharing. We expect the company to distribute most of its earnings as dividends, as usual. The profit-sharing outlook for the coming years is also positive, and we expect healthy dividend growth along with earnings.

eQ, known for its abundant profit distribution, is expected to continue its familiar distribution policy, and we expect it to distribute all of its earnings. However, the dividend will decrease significantly from the previous year in line with earnings. eQ's liquidity position has tightened over the past two years, as the company has accrued performance-based fees to its earnings, and the cash flows from these have been delayed due to the quiet private equity exit market. These cash flows should finally begin to materialize during Q4, and with this, the risk related to liquidity should also quickly dissipate. The dividend outlook for the coming years depends entirely on the rate of earnings growth, and we do not expect the strategy update to be launched in early spring to cause revisions to the company's capital allocation policy.

For the past three years, Alexandria has distributed all of its earnings as dividends. The company’s balance sheet is very strong and, in our opinion, quite clearly over-capitalized. This is, in our view, because the company wants to maintain significant leeway for acquisitions. Strengthening the balance sheet from its current level is no longer warranted in our view, so distributing the entire earnings is practically a given. We also consider it very possible that the company will use its exceptionally strong balance sheet to keep its dividend symbolically growing. In our view, this would be more than warranted, especially as next year's earnings outlook is strong and 2025 earnings are depressed by the penalty fee received from the Financial Supervisory Authority in H1.

Throughout its history, Titanium has distributed virtually all of its earnings as dividends. Historically, the company has distributed around 70% of its earnings as a basic dividend and the rest as an additional dividend, and in our view, in Titanium's case, the additional dividend can be interpreted as part of normal profit distribution. Titanium's earnings have decreased significantly in recent years, as the Hoivarahasto fund's performance fees have declined and the company has made growth investments as part of its new strategy. Titanium’s balance sheet position remains very strong and provides some leeway in terms of M&As. We still consider it likely that the company will distribute its entire earnings as dividends. However, we see a small risk that the company wants to increase its balance sheet buffers in the current situation, where it is driving a new strategy and the main product, the Hoivarahasto fund, is still losing capital.

United Bankers’ earnings will fall clearly this year, as performance fees decrease from the high level of the comparison period.  The company's dividend policy is to distribute at least 70% of its earnings as dividends, but with the balance sheet in very good condition, the company has no reason to be stingy with its profit distribution. Although the company has not publicly stated this, we estimate that it aims for a growing dividend, which is also reflected in its profit-sharing decisions. For example, for the record year 2024, the payout ratio was just under 70%. We expect the payout ratio to be high on average in the next few years, around 90%, but it will vary annually with earnings. Overall, we believe UB is excellently positioned to keep its dividend on a growth path in the coming years, supported by a strong balance sheet and growing earnings.

Taaleri differs from other companies in the sector in that dividends only play a minor role in its investment story. In capital allocation, the company focuses on investments in its own balance sheet and acquisitions. The company's dividend policy is to distribute at least 50% of its earnings as dividends, and we estimate that the profit distribution will be closer to the lower end of the target range in the coming years. We commented on the profit distribution in more detail after the CMD in early September.

CapMan aims to distribute at least 70% of its earnings excluding fair value changes as dividends, and in addition, the company seeks to grow the dividend over time. The company's balance sheet is in good condition following the sale of CaPS a year ago, especially considering the Group's massive investment portfolio. While the dividend has excellent prerequisites for growth in the long term, there is uncertainty regarding the dividend in the short term. The company’s earnings will remain subdued this year and will largely come from fair value changes. In addition, the company may have to make significant investments in its new flagship funds, which could temporarily tighten liquidity. We still expect the dividend to grow next spring, but this is dependent on the company's stance on its cash sufficiency for the following year. In the long term, there are good prerequisites for dividend growth, provided that the current growth strategy progresses as planned.

Sampo’s dividend policy is crystal clear. The company distributes around 70% of its earnings as a "basic dividend", and it wants to find a way to keep this growing in any situation. The company's business requires very limited capital, and thus, the company can distribute most of its earnings to its owners. Therefore, the portion exceeding the basic dividend and any other capital released from the balance sheet will be channeled into share buybacks. The company has systematically carried out a share buyback program in recent years, and we believe this will continue in the future. In Sampo's case, it is good to look at profit distribution as a combination of dividends and share buybacks.

Nordea's dividend policy is also clear, with the company distributing 60-70% of its annual earnings as dividends and supplementing this with share buybacks. Nordea’s profit distribution should also be considered as a combination of dividends and share buybacks. Our dividend estimate for 2025 expects a payout ratio of slightly less than 70%, in which case the profit-sharing ratio, including share buybacks, would rise to over 85%. In the coming years, we expect the dividend to grow steadily along with earnings

Mandatum has, during its short listed history, profiled itself as the industry's most generous dividend payer. This is thanks to the bloated balance sheet at the time of the IPO, which is constantly being reduced Mandatum distributes the funds released from the balance sheet as dividends to its owners in addition to the actual annual earnings accruals. For 2025, we expect a total dividend of EUR 1.0, which includes funds released from the sale of Saxo Bank and Enento shares. Therefore, it is futile to expect this level of profit distribution in the coming years, although the balance sheet clean-up keeps the dividend higher than earnings in our estimates for a long time to come.

Oma Säästöpankki's earnings have been under clear pressure, as the cost level has grown significantly due to investments in risk management, and the interest rate level has depressed earnings. In addition, there have been challenges related to the quality of the loan portfolio, so we expect the company to continue its cautious profit distribution in line with last year and distribute around 30% of its annual earnings as dividends. However, OmaSp’s balance sheet is already quite strong at its current level, so we expect increased profit distribution in the coming years. Earnings development should also stabilize, which supports the profit distribution outlook.

We expect Aktia’s results to remain at last year’s level. Although the operational profitability has decreased with interest rates, lower one-off costs support earnings development. However, we expect a nominal one-cent increase in the dividend, which would correspond to a payout ratio of around 80%. Aktia's dividend policy is to distribute around 60% of the financial year's earnings as dividends, and the company may supplement this with additional dividends or share buybacks. However, with a 60% dividend ratio, the bank's balance sheet would continuously strengthen, which we do not consider likely given that solvency is already above the targeted level.

We do not expect Alisa Bank to distribute a dividend in the coming years, as the company is currently in a strong growth phase and the business is still unprofitable due to low volumes. The company does have excess solvency, but it intends to use this to enable the growth of its business. In Alisa's case, the dividend does not play an essential role; instead, achieving the high growth targets set for invoice financing is significant for investors.