The offer values Christiania Bank at 44 kroner a share, a premium of 29 per cent over Christiania's closing share price of 34.10 kroner Friday in Oslo. If successful in its takeover of Christiania, MeritaNordbanken, the Nordic region's second-largest bank, said it will become the leading financial group in the Nordic and Baltic region, with assets totaling 123 billion euros ($128.33 billion), seven million individual customers, 470,000 corporate and institutional customers and 900 branch offices in seven countries. Svenska Handelsbanken AB currently is the region's biggest bank.

Christiania Bank, based in Oslo, welcomed the offer, calling it "positive for the bank's clients, employees and shareholders." MeritaNordbanken, based in Helsinki,Finland, has conditioned its offer upon 90 per cent acceptance from Christiania's shareholders and approval from the Norwegian finance ministry.

The Norwegian state itself holds around 35 per cent of Christiania Bank after selling its majority 51 per cent stake earlier this year in a public offering. The offer period is expected to begin around September 28 and end on October 29, unless extended.

Chrisitiania, while welcoming the bid, said its board of directors will study the offer further before issuing a formal recommendation to shareholders. Under Norwegian regulations, the board must make a formal recommendation no later than one week before the end of the offer period.

So far, the Finnish-Swedish group has identified pretax synergies and cost savings of 80 million euros a year over a three-year period. The proposed MeritaNordbanken/Christiania group is expected to incur restructuring costs of about 75 million euros. The planned integration process for Christiania will include the continuedoperation of the Norwegian bank under its current name, but with its full participation in the integration of the new group.

The composition of the newly formed group's board of directors and executive management will be reflect the inclusion of Christiania.

Meanwhile, the group's expertise in the shipping, oil and gas, offshore and fisheries sectors will be based in Norway.