to the cooperative retailer EKA and the construction company Haka, both bound for bankruptcy. An assetless shell, Siltapankki Oy, remained with the bad debt. Facing bankruptcy, the remaining parts were sold in 1992 to another major bank, Kansallis-Osake-Pankki, which took over the operations and terminated its independent brand and existence. The owning foundation received only 75 million markka in the form of KOP shares (itself ripe for bankruptcy), thus leading to an immediate loss of 175 million markka (ca. 30 million euro). The government merged Siltapankki with the bad bank Arsenal in 1995. All savings customers were fully refunded. The total cost to taxpayers was ca. 2 billion Finnish markka (around 0.5 billion in 2010 euros) according to Esko Seppänen. The last CEO of the bank was Ulf Sundqvist, a prominent SDP politician and the party president in 1991-1993. The allegations and protracted court cases due to the STS collapse damaged his career, preventing ascendancy to prime minister. Sundquist was eventually convicted of debtor's dishonesty (a felony of hiding assets from creditors), with his appeal denied by the Supreme Court in 2001. The minister involved on behalf of the government, Arja Alho, was forced to resign for negotiating the settlement poorly. Other involved members of the board were given no opportunity to settle, and if the same standard had been applied to Sundquist, he would have been ordered to pay 5.7 million instead of 1.8 million in damages. The modern successor of KOP and thus STS is Nordea. The holding foundation still exists as Palkansaajasäätiö, which maintains the STS museum. CEOs Jonas Laherma - 1916–1959 Mauno Koivisto - 1959–1968 Ulf Sundqvist - 1982–1991 Yrjö-Olavi Aav - 1991-1992 References External links Banks of Finland Finnish companies established in 1971 Banks established in 1971