The plot against Iceland

Ég birti þetta hér á blogginu í fyrrasumar:

 Pistill skrifaður af Nobelsverðlaunahafanum Paul Krugman í apríl 2008:

On a gloomy North Atlantic evening in January, a group of international hedge fund managers gathered in the stylish bar of 101 Hotel in downtown Reykjavik at 8pm for a drink before dinner. They had been flown to Iceland by Bear Stearns, the US investment bank that two months later had to be rescued. Bear had organised the excursion to discuss the bizarre state of Iceland’s economy. What transpired at this dinner has entered into legend within Iceland’s close-knit financial community.

An executive who works with a big Icelandic bank recalls: “Upon entering the bar I was approached by one of the hedge fund managers. He informed me that all people in this party – except for him, of course – were shorting Iceland.” The executive says the fund manager described Iceland’s profit-making potential as the “second coming of Christ”.

“As dinner progressed – some people actually decided not to eat at all but just sit at the bar – and more drinks were downed, the conversation and questions started to get more hostile and short positions openly declared,” the executive says.

What started as an alcohol-fuelled evening has become a full-blown investigation by Iceland’s Financial Supervisory Authority into an alleged speculative attack by hedge funds on Iceland’s currency, banking system and stock market. Jonas Jonsson, director-general of Iceland’s FSA, says the authorities are “searching whether some parties have systematically been distributing negative and false rumours about the Icelandic banks and financial system in order to profit from it”.

 Og þetta hefur Ambrose Evans-Pritchard að segja um Ísland í mars 2008.

Evans-Pritchard telur upp helstu fjármálarisanna á Íslandi:

Icelandic stakes in UK Plc

Baugur (investment company)

Mosaic Fashions, Coast, Karen Millen, Oasis, Odille, Principles, Shoe Studio Group, Warehouse, Whistles, Jane Norman, MK One, All Saints, House of Fraser, Booker, Iceland, Woodward Foodservice, Julian Graves and Whittard of Chelsea, Hamleys, Aurum, Goldsmiths, Mappin & Webb, Wyevale Garden Centres, Watches of Switzerland, Debenhams, Woolworths, French Connection, Moss Bros

Arev (investment company)

Aspinal of London, Blooming Marvellous, Cruise, Duchamp, Hardy Amies, GHOST, Jones Bootmaker, Limeys, Linens 'n Things, Mountain Warehouse, Unisport

Kaupthing (investment bank)

Singer & Friedlander, Somerfield

FL Group (investment company)

Inspired Gaming Group, House of Fraser

Landsbanki (investment bank)

Icesave

Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson (Icelandic billionaire)

West Ham Football Club Box Label DT

Hvaða aðili er þessi Arev? Ég hef aldrei heyrt minnst á þetta fjárfestingarfélag. Fann heimildir á netinu um að Jón Scheving Thorsteinsson sé stofnandi þessa félags.

Svo fann ég meira um þetta fyrirtæki. T.d. þetta:

Arev N1 private equity fund acquires Yggdrasil
- product range broadened and retail strengthened

Reykjavik, 2nd of June, 2008 Arev N1, a private equity fund, has acquired the additional 50% of Yggdrasill, a company specialising in organic food stuffs, from its founders, Runar Sigurkarlsson and Hildur Gudmundsdottir. This transaction results in a 100% ownership of Yggdrasill by Arev N1. Founded in 1986,

og þetta

Icebank and Arev create a new private equity fund: Three billion ISK for investment in wholesale, retail and services

Reykjavík, 8th May 2007

A new private equity fund, Arev N1, has been established with up to three billion ISK to invest in Icelandic consumer goods companies, principally in the wholesale, retail and services sectors. The Fund is owned by Arev Holdings and Icebank

Arev N1 is the only fund of its type in Iceland to invest in consumer goods companies, though this is a practice common in other sectors of the economy. The fund will typically invest 50-200 million ISK in companies meeting the fund’s conditions. 

Ég fann útvarpsþátt með eftirfarandi yfirskrift:

The global financial criminal catastrophy with a close look at Iceland

En ég gat ekki linkað á hann.

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