Nokia a negative return for Finnish state-owned Solidium fund in H2 2019

As arvopaperi.fi reports, Finnish state-owned investment fund Solidium posted the 2019 financial results. Solidium’s mission is to secure Finland’s national interests through investing in strategic Finnish companies.

For the full year of 2019, Solidium had an impressive positive return on investment of 15%, but the return on equity holdings in the second half of 2019 was down 1.4%. Companies Outotec and Metso had the greatest return, while Nokia posted the lowest return.

The fund paid 338 million euros of dividend to its owner (Finland), while holding assets worth 6.9 billion euros at the end of 2019. Solidium expects to pay out a lower dividend in 2020, primarily because of Nokia’s decision to stop paying dividends until the financial situation inside the company gets better.

Solidium increased its ownership in Nokia from 3.7% to 3.85% and is the biggest domestic shareholder of the company.