PRESS RELEASE FROM STRAUMUR BURDARAS BANK:
In spite of its strong capital position and the support of funding banks Straumur Burdaras Investment bank hf. (Straumur) believes that its liquidity position is no longer strong enough to sustain its activities.
The Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority (IFSA) has therefore decided to assume the powers of a meeting of the shareholders of Straumur and immediately suspend the Board in its entirety. Further, the IFSA hereby appoints a Resolution Committee, which will take over all authority of the Board of Directors.
As a result of this Straumur is closed.
According to a statement from the government of Iceland dated 6 October 2008, all deposits of Icelandic commercial banks are fully secured. Straumur is a licensed commercial bank and is a member of The Depositors’ and Investors’ Guarantee Fund.
Further to this, William Fall, CEO of Straumur, has tendered his resignation for the company, effective immediately.
It is so nice that the Icelandic government puts the concerns of those poor investment bankers ahead of creating jobs for the regular fólk and education and health. Once again, following the lead of the US. Wealthy first! Me beginning to think the Kreppa is only for poor fólk!
You are wrong, Silvía.
Kreppa is for everyone. But the results for poor and rich fólk are different :-(
blabla.. what matters in the end is to meet a man that makes you happy
a look at the funny side of it:
http://www.euromoney.com/Article/1991004/Top-10-financial-definitions-that-are-funnier-since-the-credit-crunch.html
Straumur fell 98,83% today, its still registered at the stock market, the lowest price was 0.01 kr
huge amounts of money will probably be expected out of the Icelandic taxpayer pocets once again to cover record losses.
was this bank really that important that it had to be rescued by the State instead of just letting it fail?
>huge amounts of money will probably be expected out of the Icelandic taxpayer
Not sure about that. Don’t investment banks tend to have fewer, larger clients than normal deposit taking banks? In which case it’s likely limited to 20k euros per client.
SÍLVIA”It is so nice that the Icelandic government puts the concerns of those poor investment bankers ahead of creating jobs for the regular fólk and education and health. Once again, following the lead of the US. Wealthy first! Me beginning to think the Kreppa is only for poor fólk!”
YOU SEE GUYS? THAT IS GOOD THING FOR ICELANDERS TO START THINKING…
I think they still had assets on the books. They problem was they didn’t have enough cash on hand to refinance or pay short-term loans coming due.
Their investment losses, which were large, probably don’t have to be paid back, since most of the people (mostly institutional investors) put the money into the bank as investments, not as deposits. So I don’t think the Icelandic government has to cover the losses. Straumur was really an investment house or glorified mutual fund, not a real bank.
The Central Bank pulled the plug because Straumur was a money-losing operation that was not likely to make money in the future – they were just going to burn through the remaining assets as overhead costs (ie salaries to management) and would go completely bankrupt in a year or two. So the Central Bank wanted to save what little money was still left.
What worrys me the most are ties between the Björgólfs and Russia where they sold a beer factory for a fortune to Heineken, then invested alot of money in UK and other countrys trough Iceland,
turns out Björgólfur has accounts in Cypres who is popular for Russian money laundering,
it is mentioned here in English
http://dagskra.ruv.is/sjonvarpid/4440922/2009/03/08/2/
some Russian looking names on the list of top shareholders in Straumur
http://m5.is/?gluggi=felag&felag=23&innrigluggi=hluthafar
Those names on the bottom of the list look like Czech names, not Russian names. Straumur had an office in Czech Republic.
I don’t think Straumur was as “crooked” as Landsbanki, Kaupthing. But it is hard to tell since the financial reports give relatively little information about the loans they made and their investments.
Perhaps the trick here was to loan money to Friends of Bjorgulf, or to buy businesses from Friends of Bjorgulf. They made a lot of real estate loans and investments in UK – to whom?
Or maybe it was a relatively honest but incompetent fund, that picked investments semi-randomly. For instance, they owned hotels in Denmark and and one of their major stock holdings was Bulgarian Telecom (great investment, don’t you think?). There doesn’t seem to be any coherent strategy here (except buy high, sell low = lose money). They did buy several other brokerage and investment firms, with the main purpose of funneling investments from those feeder firms into Straumur.
These are NOT Russian names. South-east Europe ;-)
The news today is that Íbúðalánasjóður, the state owned Housing Finance Authority, was the biggest investor or depositer.
There are also Trade Union pension funds invested.
Nothing seems to work for the Björgólfs
even West Ham is in trouble,
i think they will be bankrupt before the end of this year,
The Icelandic government has hired Eva Joly as an adviser in the investigation of the bank crisis and possible finacial crimes, she is a one of the best in the world in this area,
http://dagskra.ruv.is/sjonvarpid/4440922/2009/03/08/2/
Today she said that the idea of using the Sheriff of Akranes and 4 other people to invesitgate a case this big was a joke, she is talking about at least 20 people,
iceland need chinese immigration and financial management to survive all play and no work mentality gone.
MAYBE NOW TIME FOR ME TO MOVE TO ICELAND AS NO RICH PEOPLE LEFT TO BUY MY WATCHES.
HEY, SWISS ROLEX, THANKS FOR TRYING TO IMITATE ME. YOU MIGHT BE ALEXANDER.
I WILL HAVE TO REPEAT TO YOU THAT I WRITE IN CAPITAL LETTERS BECAUSE IN READING AND WRITTING I HAVE A VERY STRANGE PATERN THA IS IN THE SPECTRUM OF WHAT PEOPLE COMMONLY CALL “DYSLEXIA”.
YOU CAN MAKE ALL THE FUN YOU WANT ABOUT IT. DON´T YOU HAVE ANYONE IN YOUR FAMILY WHO IS SPECIAL OR DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY ( PEOPLE LABELED AS “HAVING A DISSABILITY”) ?? I AM SURE THAT YOU HAVE SOME CLOSE RELATIVE…
BUT, WHAT ABOUT IF IT WAS YOUR SON, YOUR DAUGHTER, OR JUST YOURSELF. 30% OF PEOPLE GET A DISSABILITY AFTER THE AGE OF 60. WHAT ABOUT IF YOU GOT ALMOST BLIND AND YOUR VISIBILITY GOT REALLY REDUCED OR ALTERED?? THEN YOU WOULD HAVE TO TYPE IN CAPS, JUST LIKE ME. AND SOMETIMES USE A PROGRAM TO READ TEXTS FOR YOU…
YOU CAN KEEP MAKING FUN OF ME USING CAPS… IT IS UP TO YOU THE KIND OF HUMAN BEING YOU ARE, AND THE SENSE OF RESPECT THAT LIES IN YOUR CONSCIENCE…
AND ABOUT STRAUMUR… WELL, AT LEAST NOW EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL OF THE GOVERMENT…
WELLCOME TO THE SOVIET POPULAR REPUBLIC OF ICELAND…
BTW, NOW ROLEX IS SELLING MORE WATCHES THAN EVER BEFORE… STILL, I REMEMBER YOU, SWITZERLAND IS A VERY MUCH RICH COUNTRY IF YOU COMPARE IT WITH WHAT ICELAND IS TODAY…
YOU SHOULD LEARN FROM US, AT LEAST, IN HOW TO MANAGE BANKS AND HOW TO DEVELOPE COMPETITIVE INDUSTRY OF LAST TECHNOLOGY ( NANOTECHNOLOGY, AEROSPATIAL, TELECOMUNICATIONS, INFORMATICS, ROBOTICS, BIOTECHNOLOGY, ETC…)
FISH AND ALUMINIUM AND A DEFAULT BANK SYSTEM = THIRD WORLD ECONOMY…
“In spite of its strong capital position …(Straumur) believes that its liquidity position is no longer strong enough to sustain its activities.”
“Strong” here means “big on credit” as the all of the Western economies?
@Balkanson
You right – it’s all about balance shit ;-)
They are really, really big… in parrots
I SAW IN MORGUNBLADIÐ A MAP OF COUNTRIES IN CRISIS, THE PUT COUNTRIES IN RED AND BLUE… BUT FOR ICELAND THEY SHOULD HAVE USED BLACK.. BECAUSE THINGS HERE ARE WORSE THAN ANYWHERE ELSE.
I DID NOT SEE NORWAY IN THAT MAP, NOR SWITZERLAND…
SO YOU CAN SAY ANYTHING YOU WANT, WE SWIMMG IN ABUNDANCE AND PROSPERITY WHILE YOU LIVE ON INTERNATIONAL HELP AND ARE TOTALLY RUINED. BUT STILL, YOU SEEM TO HAVE NOTHING LEARNT. AND ICELANDIC PEOPLE KEEPS GENERALLY WITH THE SAME STUFF…
I JUST HOPE ( FOR YOUR OWN SAKE) THAT YOU WILL BECOME A NATION OF MODEST PEOPLE. NOT A NATION OF PEOPLE WHO THINK OF THEMSELVES TO BE BETTER AND SUPERIOR,
BUT YOU SEE NOW HOW SUPERIOR YOU ARE…