Davy Stockbrokers has sold its Finnish broking subsidiary Protos to the banking group Mandatum for a total of 50 million markka (£6.6 million). Davy will be paid half in cash and half in Mandatum shares. Davy, which was once partly owned by Citibank and now owned by Bank of Ireland, acquired Protos from Citibank 10 years ago.

Unlike Davy's premier position in the Dublin stock market, Protos is a relatively small player in the Helsinki market with just a 3 per cent market share. Protos does not deal in Nokia stock - which makes up 40 per cent of the local market - and, if Nokia is excluded, then Protos has about 5 per cent of the remainder of the market.