Riga/Tallinn - The most valuable company in Estonia is the local subsidiary of Swedish bank Swedbank, according to a new list of the Baltic nation's top 100 businesses issued October 17.

Hansapank, recently rebranded to match the Swedbank name of its parent company, is worth 71.7 billion Estonian kroons (5.6 billion euros) according to the annual GILD100 rankings produced by Tallinn- based investment house GILD Bankers.

Second place was taken by electricity generator Eesti Energia, worth 1.6 billion euros, with another Scandinavian-owned bank, SEB, in third place with a market value of 1.2 billion euros.

The total estimated equity value of the 100 largest Estonian companies dropped 11 per cent from 22 billion euros in 2007 to 19.4 billion in 2008.

"Given the rapid developments on the financial markets this year, we calculated that by October 2008 the entire equity value of the top
10 companies in the ranking dropped by 42 per cent, but at the same time the top 10 is consistent, in terms of who are the strongest players among Estonian companies," GILD Bankers managing partner Rain Tamm said.

"Clearly Estonia is facing economic challenges, especially in 2009, but strong companies will survive and find attractive opportunities to strengthen their positions."

Tamm added that he expected foreign companies would be increasingly interested in taking over Estonian enterprises.

"This should be regarded as a positive development as we can keep valuable companies, jobs and markets running," he said. (dpa)