Securum Bad Bank (1992)
In December 1992 the Swedish state founded Securum, a state-owned asset-management company that absorbed about 67 billion SEK of distressed real-estate loans from the partly state-owned Nordbanken. Designed with McKinsey using lessons from the US Resolution Trust Corporation, Securum became the globally cited model for systemic banking-crisis resolution and held the final fiscal cost within roughly 2 percent of GDP.
Securum was the first modern bad bank to be deployed inside a small-open-economy crisis. Founded in December 1992 by the Bildt cabinet, it was the operational backbone of the Swedish response to the 1991–1993 banking crisis — a state-owned asset-management company that absorbed roughly 67 billion SEK of distressed commercial-property loans from Nordbanken at conservative valuations.
The design was developed jointly with McKinsey & Co., drawing on the US Resolution Trust Corporation’s experience with the 1980s Savings and Loan crisis. Finance Minister Anne Wibble, Business Minister Per Westerberg and Fiscal Minister Bo Lundgren provided political cover; Lars Thunell led the vehicle from 1992 to 1995. Nordbanken was recapitalised and continued as a viable bank; Securum was wound down by 1997, with final recoveries keeping the net taxpayer cost low.
The vehicle became the IMF and ECB reference model for systemic banking resolution and was explicitly invoked when Reinfeldt‘s 2008 Stabilitetsfonden was designed. The Securum precedent also shifted Sweden’s international reputation from “crisis country” to “crisis textbook” — a paradox of state ownership delivering a market-oriented rescue.