Hjálmar Ragnarsson, the head of the school, has now confirmed that the advertisements are a wind-up.

One course being taught after the new year mixes all second-year students from all courses together to work on a specific issue. “The goal is to study and discuss among themselves and take on some subject which they find interesting and exciting,” Hjálmar told Vísir.is.

One of the small working groups decided to try and find out what brings happiness to people’s lives. The group discovered from the reaction to their advertisements that H&M does indeed make Icelanders happy. “They found it really interesting to bring attention to what things can make people happy,” Hjálmar said.

He would not rule out that other pranks of this nature will happen in the future; but added that they are done in good humour.

Not everybody was so pleased, however. After Vísir.is reported on the seemingly-real signs saying that H&M was about to open its first store in Iceland, the website’s editors received an angry phone call claiming that the news could have a negative impact on Hagar’s share price. Hagar is Iceland’s biggest retail consortium and has recently been re-registered on the Reykjavík stock exchange.

(Photo: Vísir.is)

Bauhaus sells goods for home improvement, gardening, interior design and construction, among other things. It will be in competition with many other companies when it opens in Reykjavík; but its main two competitors will undoubtedly be BYKO and Húsasmiðjan/Blómaval. The latter was recently sold to a Danish retail firm.

The German company Bauhaus has been interested in opening a branch in Iceland since 2003, mbl.is reports. Now, nine years later, the shop will finally open at Lambahagavegur on the outskirts of Reykjavík. The company is advertising for 60-80 new staff.

In an interview with the Morgunblaðið newspaper today, Bauhaus president Mads Jörgensen said that he does not expect the new store to be profitable to begin with; but that the company feels it makes more economic sense to open the outlet than to keep it closed longer, because it costs money to own the land and to maintain the building, which has been empty since 2008.

Bauhaus was attracted to Iceland by its cash wealthy populace and its strong currency (making goods from Germany seem cheaper when sold in Iceland). But Iceland’s banking crisis struck just weeks before the store was due to open – and staff had even been hired. At that point the strength of the Icelandic króna crumbled, the property market crumbled, and citizens’ disposable income also crumbled. The company therefore decided to put their project on hold.

BYKO and Húsasmiðjan have long been in the spotlight for a string of alleged cases of bad practice, including price fixing and co-operation; even years before the banking crash. Now Icelandic consumers can hope for lower prices on hardware with Húsasmiðjan in Danish hands and added competition from Bauhaus.

Húsasmiðjan was heavily over-leveraged in the lead-up to the financial collapse and has several times been the subject of office searches related to claims of price fixing and accounting anomalies. The company has branches all over Iceland and was considered viable enough to be rescued by the Enterprise Investment Fund. The EIF is an umbrella investment company jointly owned by some of Iceland’s biggest pension funds. It was set up to help revitalise the national economy and save large companies from possible bankruptcy.

Now the EIF has sold all of Húsasmiðjan’s operations and assets to the Danish DIY retail chain Bygma Gruppen A/S. The sales process has dragged on since August and Bygma submitted the highest offer. The cost of the purchase is reported to be ISK 3.3 billion (EUR 20.6 million); meaning that Bygma takes on Húsasmiðjan’s ISK 2.5 billion (EUR 15.6 million) non-default debt burden and pays an additional ISK 800 million (EUR 5 million) on top.

Bygma will also take over the company’s other debts, its employment contracts with staff, its rental contracts and all other operation-linked obligations, according to a statement from the EIF.

None of Húsasmiðjan’s debts are being written off in the sale and the company’s name and branding will not change when Bygma takes over on 1st January.

According to Vísir.is Bygma is a private Danish company which sells and distributes timber and other building materials. Bygma runs over 65 shops in Denmark, Sweden and the Faroe Islands and has about 1,600 employees. Bygma sales in 2011 will be around EUR 630 million (ISK 100 billion). Bygma was established around 60 years ago and has always been owned by the same family.

Older news on Húsasmiðjan here

The years 2006 and 2007 were record breakers for Icelandair flights to the USA; but demand crumbled following the banking crash of 2008 — especially for Christmas shopping trips. The depression was short-lived, however, as demand began to increase again last year and is higher still this year.

Guðjón Arngrímsson, Icelandair’s information officer, told RÚV that Boston is particularly popular this year and that although December figures are not yet available, it seems as though over 5,000 Icelanders will have flown to the city in October, November and December. Guðjón says Boston’s popularity has taken the company by surprise and that it is clearly a result of word-of-mouth that it is a cheap place to go shopping.

In fact Christmas shopping is not just happening in shops. Icelanders are also buying online and having their purchases delivered to their hotels before they arrive. The phenomenon has become so widespread that many hotels have started charging commission if guests have more than one package delivered by post.

It is noteworthy that so many Icelanders find it financially preferable to buy their Christmas presents overseas at a time when the value of the Icelandic króna is still significantly lower than before the banking crash. The Association of Icelandic Retailers recent called on the government to cut VAT in the country to make shops in Iceland more competitive. Internet sales to Iceland are also hampered by the extremely high import tariffs charged by Customs which often make cheap foreign goods more expensive than they are in Icelandic shops.

People shopping for Christmas presents like clothes, toys and electronics for large families, do indeed often find that the price difference makes a trip overseas worthwhile for Icelanders. Foreigners in Iceland, however, are still benefiting from the weakness of the króna and purchase tax refunds for tourists which mean shopping in the country can still be cheap — especially on designer brands.

Despite the popularity of Boston this year, thousands of Icelandic shoppers are also streaming to cities like London, New York, Berlin and Copenhagen, while retailers inside the country continue claiming this means there is something wrong with the system.

Frank Michelsen, who owns and runs the Michelsen watch shop on Laugavegur in Reykjavik, believes he will this weekend be able to start selling the recovered stolen Rolexes which were taken by armed Polish raiders in October.

“It is classified as a large robbery and we are in contract talks with the insurance company over how best to resolve the situation because it will be a precedent case,” Michelsen told Pressan.is.

This week was one month after the raid took place in which 49 watches were stolen from his shop and his staff were forced to look down the barrel of the raiders’ gun.

“It was first yesterday evening when the astonishing time of the robbery came to me. The robbery happened on 17.10 at exactly 10.17. I find that a really strange coincidence,” Michelsen says. Indeed, although 17.10 at 10.17 is strange in Europe, under the American date system it would have been written 10.17 at 10.17. Even stranger…

Frank Michelsen says he is aware that the watches recovered from a stolen British-registered car are in high demand despite, or perhaps because of, their varying states of damage.

“There is an unbelievable amount of interest. There are people asking me if they can get it certified that the watches they are buying were from the raid and they think it will increase their value. But the watches will be sold at lower prices, individually decided based on how damaged they are. Each one will have to be assessed individually,” the watchmaker says.

He says he has done his best to put the robbery behind him and is thankful that nobody was hurt, or even killed, when the three assailants robbed his shop at 10.17 on the 17th of the 10th.

Marja-Liisa Luther, from Umea, northern Sweden, spotted the emaciated toy, which is aimed a girls between the ages of four and six, in Barnens Hus store last week. Speaking to The Local, Ms Luther said, “I couldn’t believe my eyes when I picked it up. It looked simply awful. The other dolls are surely skinny enough as it is, and this was extreme,” she added.

After asking the opinions of nearby shoppers and receiving similar shocked responses, she took a picture of the doll on her phone and uploaded the image to her Facebook profile. “It became so much bigger than I had imagined,” Ms Luther said. “The picture was shared on Facebook an enormous amount of times and then the papers started calling me and the topic was brought up on TV.” Some online commentators called the doll – marketed as Defa Lucy Mermaid Princess – “sickly” and dubbed her “Anorexia Barbie”. The Barnens Hus chain has now removed the product from all of its stores across Sweden. Ms Luther explained to The Local that as a pre-school teacher, she is convinced that children can be influenced by their toys. “Kids who play with the doll will identify with it. They might feel that it is natural to be super-skinny and think ‘Well, maybe this is the way I should look too’,” she said. Thomas Westerdahl from Barnes Hus told the Metro that two other dolls were also removed from the shops in April for similar reasons. ”We are going to have a closer look at the doll [Defa Lucy Mermaid Princess]. I don’t think it will go back on the shelf again,” he said. “It is a miss in our internal screening system. This one shouldn’t have made it to the shelves,” he added.

Spisebaren, which sparked much debate by outlawing the practice at its Illum eatery, has now announced that it will open Mælkebaren (the milk bar) as an alternative.

Speaking to tabloid BT after initiating the ban, Spisebaren manager Mikkel Shafi, a father of four himself, explained, “It’s just not something everyone wants to see, and we understand how they feel. Some [nursing mothers] are able to do it discreetly, but there are others that just plop out their breast and do it in front of everyone. It’s just not attractive.”

Shafi explained that although they were reluctant to issue an outright ban, it was impossible to create a rule about discreetness. He added that it was also a business decision, based on the relatively small amount of money they would lose by turning away such customers. “With all due respect, they come here for a few hours with their kids and their average purchase isn’t that great,” he said.

The decision has sparked much debate on social networking sites, with some commentators commending the department store for standing up to mothers and others claiming discrimination.

One of the accused and his father remain in hospital in Sweden after the incident, believed to be a dispute between rival shop fractions, which saw around 20 bullets fired from numerous weapons.

Eyewitnesses report seeing a scuffle break out near the mosque in the Vesterbro district of Copenhagen before the victim drew a knife. An autopsy revealed that he received multiple gunshot and stab wounds, but it has not been determined whether his own knife was used in the attack.

Police initially investigated the killing as a gang-related incident, but have since revealed the true nature of the disagreement was rival shopkeepsers. They also claim that the victim, who recently opened a new shop in the Danish capital, has previously served a five-year sentence for stabbing an American exchange student in the city in 2004.

Another four men, two of which are thought to be friends of the victim and two from the rival group, are also being sought for questioning by police.

Icelandic postmen and women are this week burdened with bags which are twice as heavy even than in Christmas week. Pressure on Iceland Post’s telephone switchboards is also higher than usual this week and early next week.

The reason for all the fuss? The new IKEA catalogue is being delivered to every home in the country.

The comprehensive (and chunky) IKEA catalogue is sent to every house in Iceland once a year and the postal service is never busier than this week. 118,000 homes in total.

The average weight of a postman/woman’s bags is 20 kilogrammes. It goes up to 40 around Christmas. But this week, thanks to the Swedish household retail giant, that figure jumps to 103 kilogrammes, average.

Unlike most unsolicited mail, the IKEA catalogue is generally well-received by householders; many of whom impatiently call Iceland Post to ask where their copy is — especially at the beginning of next week if they are not all sent out by Friday, RUV reports.

Postal workers are already looking forward to a quiet week next week.

(Photo: Alëx Elliott // IceNews)

Tiu-ellefu ehf. (better-known as 10-11) runs 23 convenience stores across Iceland.

10-11 was split off from Hagar and put under the control of a specially created company called Eignabjarg after Arion Bank took over the Hagar retail empire. Hagar used to be owned by Johannes Jonsson and his family, including his son, Jon Asgeir Johannesson.

The advertisement which appeared today states that all shares in Tiu-ellefu ehf. will be sold in one go. The sale will be open to all investors who can show they are able to afford the chain and have instantly available liquidity to a minimum value of ISK 300 million (EUR 1.81 million), DV reports.

Non-binding purchase offers must be received by Arion Bank on or before 18th May.

Hagar is Iceland’s biggest retail chain and used to include a variety of clothing chains and the Bonus, Hagkaup and 10-11 food stores, among other interests.