The idea of establishing an independent corporate finance boutique evolved over a long period of time. The founder of Summa, Mr. Mikko Bergman, already made a business plan for an investment banking boutique as a university project – the plan was not implemented as such but the idea continued to live. After working for major international investment banks in London and Helsinki, Mikko decided to establish Summa in 2003.

Summa has been built on strong core values: trust, integrity, creativity and expertise. Since beginning, Summa’s main target has been to deliver corporate finance services better and in a different way than the traditional, established players in the market. Since day one the idea was to create deep, long-lasting relationships with the clients – by staying close to its customers Summa can understand the underlying business problems and bring innovative solutions to the table. Summa does not provide standard, out-of-the-shelf products, but tailored solutions that really match the client’s needs.

Summa established its position in the market rapidly and started to win more and more M&A and financing mandates. Straight-forward, solution-oriented way of working fits well into the Finnish business culture and gets good response from the clients. In 2007 Summa completed its largest transaction so far, when it advised Stockmann on the € 867 million public takeover of Lindex. Summa also organized the financing for the transaction and participated in the refinancing of the acquisition Financing after the transaction by arranging an equity offering in 2008.

Stockmann’s equity offering mentioned above and CapMan’s hybrid bond offering during the same year were Summa’s first capital market transactions. After that Summa has completed several capital market transactions with different instruments, such as equity, senior bonds, hybrid bonds and convertible bonds. In 2014 Summa made an entry in to IPO’s when it acted as the lead manager in Nixu’s listing to Nasdaq OMX Helsinki’s First North marketplace.