Saga - 2011, Page 135

Við einkavæðingu Búnaðarbankans tóku kaupendurnir, afkom-
endur Sambands íslenskra samvinnufélaga, höndum saman með
forsvarsmönnum ungs fjárfestingarbanka og til varð stærsta fjár-
málafyrirtæki landsins. Með kaupum S-hópsins á Búnaðarbank -
anum var tónninn gefinn fyrir yfirkeyrslu næstu ára þegar íslenskt
fjármálakerfi óx fram úr hófi og skuldsetning varð óviðráðanleg.
Þegar bylgjur alþjóðlegrar fjármálakreppu skullu á ströndum Ís -
lands haustið 2008 brotnaði þessi nýi fjármálarisi í spón.
Abstract
b jörn j ón b jörns son
THE PRIVATISATION OF BÚNAÐARBANKI BANK
At the beginning of this century, the governing Independence Party and
Progressive Party coalition changed course. The government abandoned its orig-
inal plan for distributing the ownership of the state-owned financial institutions
during their privatisation, deciding instead to sell controlling stakes to core
investors. Although both parties bore political responsibility for the sale of these
banks, Progressive Party ministers were definitely in the driver’s seat as con-
cerned privatising the Búnaðarbanki. Extremely adamant, they actually threat-
ened to break up the coalition in order to ensure bank control by the so-called S-
group, a consortium with strong connections to the Progressive Party. This con-
trol was partly to be realised through a major Icelandic insurance company,
Vátryggingarfélag Íslands (VÍS), since the half stake which the state-owned bank
Landsbanki had in VÍS was being sold to the S-group. A holding company owned
by relatives of Halldór Ásgrímsson, chairman of the Progressive Party, thereby
managed to become the largest shareholder in VÍS, and a close ally of Ásgríms-
son, the former Progressive Party vice-chairman and current Commerce Minister
and Central Bank Governor Finnur Ingólfsson, was made the CEO of VÍS. The
power acquired over VÍS by the S-group was a precondition of the group’s pur-
chasing a majority stake in the Búnaðarbanki.
The participation of a respected foreign investment firm had been one of the
three main reasons for considering the S-group best qualified to buy Búnaðar -
banki, and S-group representatives repeatedly mentioned plans of the interna-
tional bank Société Générale being involved in this investment. However, when
the time came to sign a deal, the foreign entity in the purchase proved to be a
small private German bank, Hauck & Aufhäuser. There is little evidence that this
bank genuinely owned the Búnaðarbanki stock; rather, the German bank seems
merely to have served as trustee, probably for an Icelandic party. Within a short
time, Hauck & Aufhäuser received an exemption from the sales agreement, enabling
it to sell its shares to cronies of Ólafur Ólafsson, principal leader of the S-group.
sagan af einkavæðingu búnaðarbankans 135
Saga haust 2011 NOTA_Saga haust 2004 - NOTA 11/24/11 9:52 AM Page 135