Updated 02.03.2010: Two bankrupt companies connected to former business tycoons Jon Asgeir Johannesson, Palmi Haraldsson and Hannes Smarason have almost no assets at all, but owe over ISK 100 billion (USD 780 million).

Gaumur, owned by the so-called Bonus family (the best-known are Johannes Jonsson and his son Jon Asgeir Johannesson, who started the Bonus supermarket chain), owes ISK 20 billion (USD 156.1 million). It once owned Baugur, which is itself now bankrupt.

Baugur Group owned Stodir, which used to be called FL Group. Stodir owned a company called Stytta, as well as the company Blackstar Limited in the Isle of Man.

Stytta was used as a sort of ghost company, according to RUV, and was used in the complicated business relationship between Jon Asgeir Johannesson, Palmi Haraldsson and Hannes Smarason where they sold the Sterling airline, a sizeable share of the UK’s Iceland supermarket chain and other businesses back and forth among themselves. However, Stodir has formally rebuffed RUV’s claims in the statement published at the end of this article.

The assets of Stytta were almost nothing, but the estate of the company still has debts of ISK 100 billion, which creditors have little hope of ever seeing again. The biggest single creditor to the company is Old Landsbanki.

Another company, Solin Skin, was once registered to Baugur’s HQ in Reykjavik. The company is now bankrupt but was once used by Jon Asgeir and Palmi Haraldsson for all sorts of deals. Its debts amount to at least ISK 20 billion and its assets are extremely few.

A statement from Stodir regarding a RUV news story about the matters of the Icelandic holding company Stytta:
RUV claims that Stytta owns practically no assets against liabilities of around ISK 100 billion and therefore Stytta´s creditors, primarily Landsbankinn, will suffer enormous losses. This is not true, as Stytta is the largest independent shareholder of Iceland Foods, with nearly a 30% share. This would have been easy for RUV to discover, by reading Stytta´s publicly available financial accounts. The value of this shareholding is significant, as confirmed by a member of Landsbanki´s senior management, who stated in a recent interview that Iceland Foods is “so enormously strong and valuable that it could be compared to a money machine”. It should kept in mind that Landsbankinn is not only a creditor of Stytta, but also a major shareholder of Iceland Foods. Furthermore, it should be noted that Stytta is majority-owned (64%) by three members of Iceland Foods senior management. The minority shareholder Stodir owns the remaining 36%.

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