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Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson

Björgólfur Thor’s PR machine kicks into gear

August 31, 2010

So, my little post yesterday evidently hit a nerve with a few people. After Eyjan and Pressan picked up on it, I was quite literally bombarded with phone calls and emails from one Ragnhildur Sverrisdóttir, Björgólfur Thor’s PR representative, who was most zealous in her denial of all the “old innuendos” made in the post. [...]

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Just don’t mention the Russians

August 30, 2010

A couple of days ago I met up with a documentary filmmaker who is looking to make a film about the Icelandic crisis. We had a very interesting chat, and during the course of our conversation he told me he’d been speaking to what he called “the Viking contingent” in London — i.e. the oligarchs [...]

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On making amends

April 29, 2010

Back in January I wrote a wee post about Iceland’s future economic prospects, in particular the fact that a company called Verne Holding was looking to construct a data centre on the Reykjanes peninsula. The idea of setting up a data centre in Iceland is excellent. Data centres require a lot of cooling, so the [...]

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Verifying the validity of the Black Report

April 22, 2010

One of the more interesting aspects of the Black Report is that it is such an easy read. Many people here feared that it would be filled with jargon and legalese, but that’s not the case at all. It’s written in language clearly aimed at the man in the street, and peppered with lots of [...]

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Black Report: Let the cleansing begin

April 20, 2010

I don’t think I can overstate just how important the publication of the fact-finding report into the bank collapse [aka the Black Report] is for this nation. It’s our own truth commission report, and already it’s causing major waves. Eva Joly, in an interview with DV last weekend, said: … I would like to emphasize [...]

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An eruption, a flood, and some shallow apologies

April 15, 2010

What a crazy day it has been! When I got up this morning, the aftermath of the Black Report was still the Issue of the Day. I flipped through Fréttablaðið during breakfast and was pleased to note that they aren’t shying away from the misdemeanors of their owners TOO much. I haven’t seen Morgunblather since [...]

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Arion Bank’s bizarre acrobatics

February 10, 2010

God, there are so many corruption scandals emerging these days that my head is spinning. I’d love to inform the World at Large [that's you] about them but honestly, I wouldn’t know where to start. Except maybe with Kaupthing Arion Bank’s bizarre and completely outrageous settlements with this country’s former tycoons. First, Hagar. Hagar is [...]

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Maybe I Should Have, aka Follow the Money

January 23, 2010

A couple of nights ago we went to the premiere of a new Icelandic film about the collapse called Maybe I Should Have. The title is a throwback to a remark that then-PM Geir H. Haarde made on the programme Hard Talk last year. The host asked why he had not called Gordon Brown when [...]

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Why has no one been arrested?

January 16, 2010

Many readers have expressed their astonishment and indignation here in the comments that those responsible for aspects of Iceland’s economic collapse – particularly those who made a lot of money that seems to have mysteriously vanished – have not been arrested and/or their assets frozen. Believe me, many of us here are wondering the same [...]

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Who needs paperwork when you own a bank

January 11, 2010

So, it seems that the liquidator of Samson ehf. – the majority owner in Landsbanki -  is having some trouble recovering a few of the company’s assets in the form of loans that Samson – the bank’s holding company – lent to companies associated with itself. One of the loans was for ISK 20 billion [...]

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