Economic Disaster Area » Baugur

The Independence Party’s Successful Projection Of Baugur and IceSave

Dadi — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 10:50:30 +0000

It is quite amazing how successful the Independence Party has been at projecting two of their own larger problems onto others.

In classical psychology, projection is always seen as a defence mechanism that occurs when a person’s own unacceptable or threatening feelings are repressed and then attributed to someone else.

An example of this behavior might be blaming another for self failure. The mind may avoid the discomfort of consciously admitting personal faults by keeping those feelings unconscious, and redirect their libidinal satisfaction by attaching, or “projecting,” those same faults onto another.

Wikipedia

The first successful projection involves making people believe that anyone who criticises the Independence Party, especially the Social Democrat party and its followers, are somehow working on the behest of Baugur and its gang of corrupt businessmen.

But Baugur and its minions have never been more connected to any party than the Independence Party. Even if they might have paid for a couple of Social Democratic politicians like Steinunn Valdis Oskarsdottir and though a couple of others might have flirted with their money pits, it pales in comparison with the active involvement and donations Baugur has made within the Independence Party. One of the old dogs in the Independence Party spin machine, Bjorn Bjarnason knows this best as it was he who lost ground when Baugur backed young and eager gun for hire, Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson against him in the party’s primaries. And without Baugur, there would have been less of a bite behind FL Group whose donation of 30 million ISK in 2006 was initiated by Gudlaugur and accepted by then party CEO Kjartan Gunnarsson, the trusted ally of David Oddson and Geir Haarde who sat on the board of Landsbankinn.

But hardly a day goes by without an Independence Party member or supporter trying to pin Baugur onto the Social Democrats.

The other amazing projection is to convince large parts of the Icelandic public that IceSave is a problem which the nation can thank the Social Democrats and Left Greens for. By trying to conclude the agreements, this government has accepted the poisoned chalice of being targeted by the Independence Party for treason at any turn. This neglects the fact that the whole management and ownership team of Landsbankinn held their positions because of involvement in the Independence Party and of course donations to the tune of 25 million to the party from the bank in 2006. That year coincidentally was the year when any sensible government would have stepped in to rein in the banks after harsh criticism of their business models from all over the world. But instead, IceSave was created, then the government neglected to install measures which would have lessened its eventual impact.

But hardly a day goes by without an Independence Party member or supporter yelling “treason” at the persons left cleaning up the mess.

Baugur’s Monaco Party 2007 (Video)

Dadi — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:52:04 +0000

Don’t you just long for the good old times of 2007?

Watch here at Daily Motion

For The Love Of Baugur’s Money

Dadi — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:34:35 +0000

The love hate relationship between the Independence Party and Jon Asgeir Johannesson’s Baugur gets stranger every day.

The right wing politicians of the Independence Party loves to blame everything that is wrong with Iceland on Jon Asgeir and Baugur. If you believe what they say in the media then you’d deduct that they actually hate the man and his business.

But they love his money. And not just Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson or the party itself. Now DV tells us that in 2006, Gisli Marteinn Baldursson got one million ISK from Baugur when he ran for Reykjavik city council.

Gisli claims he didn’t know about the support because he wanted to separate himself from his fund-raising team.

How peculiar is that? To not want to know who your supporters are?

The Banana Republic Of Iceland (Video)

Dadi — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:27:42 +0000

The new video from Jon Gerald Sullenberger.

Burning Range Rover

Dadi — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 00:03:01 +0000

Apparantly splashing red paint on the houses of financial sorcerers isn’t enough anymore.

Three men were caught on tape in the investigation of Stefan Hilmarsson’s Range Rover burning this week. Stefan has been Baugur’s CFO and deputy CEO for years, and supposedly getting ready to start working at 365 media, the publishers of Frettabladid and Channel 2 amongst other meda. His wife is a TV cook at Channel 2, coincidentally or not.

Icelandic businessmen have in the last few years tried to set the world record for Range Rover’s per capita, as it suddenly became the “must have” showpiece of exorbitant wealth. Since the economic crash, the luxury vehicle has been a popular target for shopping carts, keying and other amusing past times enjoyed by unemployed Icelanders.

See the video of the three suspects in this link from visir.is

Bizarre News?: Hamleys picks ex-Baugur chief as chairman after board shake-up

Dadi — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:01:29 +0000

Hamleys has appointed Gunnar Sigurdsson, director of failed Icelandic retail investor and former shareholder Baugur, as chairman.

Sigurdsson has been hired after a shake-up of the board that resulted in the departure of two directors, as well as around 20 head office staff.

From Retail Week

It was the Landsbankinn solvency committee that appointed Gunnar. Bizarre world ain’t it?

Following up Baugur turns into a bit of a saga

Dadi — Sat, 23 May 2009 20:58:01 +0000

Perhaps we should have expected a little more discretion this time round given the waves of publicity that battered his last venture, but it seems the new company is being so discreet it risks disappearing all together.

Jon’s new company first appeared on Companies House as Foldtown, based at 41 Chalton Street, London. It then changed its name and address into Tecamol, based at 55 Baker Street. It’s now called JMS Partners and resides at 413 Oxford Street. All that in a matter of months.

I would give him a call to ask what is going on, but I fear I wouldn’t know where to find him.

From the Telegraph

Karen Millen In The Biggest Bank Robbery In Iceland’s History?

Dadi — Mon, 18 May 2009 09:11:29 +0000

British fashion mogul Karen Millen has provided many aspiring businesswomen with a suitable look to ascend the heights of corporatism. But questions are now being asked about her role in Byr Savings & Loan in Iceland.

Byr S&L saw the light of day through the merger of Hafnarfjordur’s S&L and the Machinists’ S&L when charter members of the two had sold their shares to a company belonging to Baugur. The mission was to get their hands on the handsome owners equity.

From the Icelandic Weather Report: The biggest bank robbery in the history of Iceland?

The main purpose of A Holding – aka Baugur – appears to have been to gain hold of the Hafnarfjörður Savings Bank, since plans were already underway to merge it with another savings bank – Sparisjóður Vélstjóra, or the Machinists’ Savings Bank [originally founded by machinists who worked on ships]. That merger went through in December 2006 and increased the value of the two banks exponentially in the merged company, which was given the name Byr. Incidentally, those plans were – as yet – completely under wraps, so there was clearly some underhanded trading going on – I presume that is the basis of the aforementioned lawsuit, although based on the info I’ve seen that’s not completely clear.

A year later, or in December 2007, the owners of Byr decided to increase the bank’s initial equity by ISK 26.2 billion. Those who already owned shares in the bank – the stofnfjáreigendur – were invited to increase their investment, and the increase was financed through loans from Glitnir bank – which in turn was largely owned by Baugur.

Four months later, the bank paid dividends to its shareholders – the stofnfjáreigendur – worth ISK 13.5 billion.

Former post from this site:

Byr lost 29 billion ISK last year but fortunately for them the government’s emergency law allows it to grant S&L’s up to 20% of owners equity as it was at the end of the year 2007.

Recently the disgruntled minority in Byr has been trying to wrangle back control of the S&L but at a general meeting it was revealed that Agust Armann, father of Magnus Armann, one of Baugur’s favorite frontmen had voting rights on the behalf or Karen Millen, through shares that she owned.

Funnily, Millen was nowhere to be seen on the registry of Byr’s charter members. The reason being that she had hid her ownership through Kaupthing Luxembourg which was registered as the owner.

Karen Millen’s former husband Kevin Stanford has been Baugur’s top business-partner in the UK. Her fashion empire was owned by Mosaic Fashion which bought the business from her in 2004 and was registered on the Icelandic Stock Exchange. Mosaic Fashion happened to be majority-owned by…who else but Baugur and it is now part of its bankrupt wreck. Hagar, owned by Baugur operated Karen Millen’s store in Reykjavik.

Jon Gerald Sullenberger has put forth a possible explanation as to why Baugur’s grip on Byr is hard to release. The S&L has refused to declare who are its biggest debtors, claiming bank-secrecy. It is known that 80% of Byr’s loans have been made to 10 individuals or companies.

Could it be that through Byr, Jon Asgeir Johannesson managed to buy 365 media, operators of Frettabladid and Channel 2 when faced with bankruptcy. Everyone was surprised that the bankrupt businessman could stump 1.5 billion ISK to rescue the company without apparantly breaking a sweat.

What does Karen Millen think about her role in these shenanigans? From a statement she is appalled that people are trying to implement her with questionable deals, but the statement issues no explanation of her role.

Another quirky side to the economic disaster that is Iceland.

A tragic tale of Free gone horribly wrong

Dadi — Wed, 06 May 2009 09:07:55 +0000

Jon Lund, the head of the Danish Internet Advertising Bureau, and I had dinner in Norway last week and he told me the chilling story of the crazy free newspaper war in Denmark that almost killed everyone involved. I thought it was an important cautionary tale of Free gone wrong, and I encouraged him to write it up on his blog.

He did, and it’s well worth reading. I’ve excerpted (and lightly edited) the basic story below, but it’s worth reading it straight from the source to get Jon’s analysis, along with a lot of links to other reports on this disaster. Short form: the attempt by a half-dozen newspaper publishers to “out-free” a free Icelandic paper that entered the market ended up costing the collective newspaper industry in Denmark more than $150 million dollars and the bankruptcy of three newspapers.

And yes, this all started with the same Icelandic investors who helped take down the world economy.

From the Long Tail Blog

One Alcoholic To Another

Dadi — Fri, 01 May 2009 18:31:28 +0000

Iceland has an alcoholic psyche.

The shared Icelandic alcoholism presents itself in co-dependence, denial and massive self-delusion.

The self-delusion lead us to think that we had it all figured out, that we could drink more than everyone before us in history without suffering the hangovers. Co-dependence tied us strongly together in masking the problems, shushing the voices that told us not to drink and close our eyes in the belief that everything would work out alright if we just prayed it would.

Denial is now preventing us from taking the next steps, to seek help to stop doing things the way we have been doing them.

This weekend one alcoholic accuses another of having problems. In an interview with DV Johannes Jonsson who founded Bonus with his son Jon Asgeir and wathed it grow into Baugur Group, says that David Oddson is a sick man. David on the other hand has been repeating his mantra that Johannes and the evil businessmen are to blame for the collapse.

One good thing about their drunken escapades of their last twenty years is that finally, people have stopped listening.

And now they are just two old farts arguing.