Gudbjorg Matthiasdottir must surely be the economic crisis’ ultimate winner. She displayed astute business sense by selling off her 1.71% share in Glitnir worth 3.5 billion ISK on the last day before it collapsed. She then partnered with a few other fishing magnates to buy the financial wreck that was Morgunbladid, after a 4 billion [...]

After the state announced that it was going to take over 75% of Glitnir it was clear that Stodir/FL Group, the largest owner of the bank would go under. It had been clear for some time that Baugur, Stodir/FL Group’s owner was in a bad shape financially. This created an immense problem for two funds [...]

How are they trying to cook this up? The banks are now agitating for re installing bonus systems for the employees of their private banking and corporate banking divisions. Now it is great if bonus systems are available for employees, but when implementing those some basic questions must be answered. What are we rewarding? Remember, [...]

The case of Glitnir lending money to children aged 1-17 for shares in BYR Savings & Loans is so filthy it is hard to grasp. The bank, with current CEO Birna Einarsdottir as a top manager allowed the parents of ten children to borrow up to 24 million ISK in their name. Amid public outcry [...]

Iceland is currently in a state of shock. The nation has been hit with one bad news after another since the economic collapse last year. The dust has not settled, with no one made responsible and few solutions to Iceland‘s problems offered by its leadership. Fingers are still being pointed and anger and resentment is [...]

One should think that transparancy is of utmost importance for any Icelandic government since the heyday of the behind-closed-doors governance of the Independence Party and the Progressive Party. Questions remain regarding the true ownership of Magma Energy, which has now gotten its hands on valuable energy resources through a game of remiscent of previous governments. [...]

How is Steingrimur J. Sigfusson going to tackle this one? Glitnir/Islandsbanki is probably about to relieve former CEO Bjarni Armannsson of a debt of 800 million ISK, which is from a loan his own shelf-company Imagine got from the bank to purchase 12% of shares in the Norwegian business Glitnir Property Holding. Bjarni who walked [...]

“Yes, yes, we just got the go-ahead from the banks to move this onto another social security number. They were in on it,” said Jakob Valgeir Flosason, the name behind Stim ehf. (a shelf company used by Glitnir to keep the price of its stock artificially up) when talking about his business leaving behind debts [...]

Has anyone thought of this yet? In 2004, Kaupthing brought the first mortgages by a commercial bank to the Icelandic market. Glitnir and Landsbanki soon followed, as did the Savings&Loans and some smaller financial institutions. In the first couple of weeks after Kaupthing’s announcement, Glitnir and Landsbankinn were practically in shock. A customer calling his [...]

As noted before it seems like the best job in the world today is to be on the solvency committee of an Icelandic bank. At Glitnir, Arni Tomasson is busy wondering how to get failing businesses into the “right hands”. Arni was the manager of Bunadarbankinn which lent Bjorgolfur & son the money to buy [...]