Kaupthing Bank
Encyclopedia
Kaupthing Bank was an international Icelandic bank, headquartered in Reykjavík
Reykjavík
Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...

, Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

. It was formed by the merger of Kaupthing and Búnaðarbanki Íslands in 2003 and was the largest bank in Iceland.

Kaupthing Bank previously operated in thirteen countries; including all the Nordic countries, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...

, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It is the seventh largest bank in the Nordic countries in terms of market capitalization.

The bank employs over 3,300 people and maintains 36 retail branches in Iceland.
As of 31 December 2007, the bank had a total assets of €58.3 billion. In 2006, it ranked number 1,006 on Forbes Global 2000
Forbes Global 2000
The Forbes Global 2000 is an annual ranking of the top 2000 public companies in the world by Forbes magazine. The ranking is based on a mix of four metrics: sales, profit, assets and market value...

, which is an annual ranking of top 2000 corporation
Corporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...

s in the world by Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...

magazine. The same year, it ranked number 177 (up by 34 places from 2005) on the list of the world's largest banks composed annually by the international finance magazine The Banker
The Banker
The Banker is an English-language monthly international financial affairs publication owned by The Financial Times Ltd. and edited in London...

.
In 2007, Kaupthing Bank had net earnings of €812 million, compared with €986 million in 2006. About 70% of the operating profit originated outside Iceland (33% in Iceland, 31% in the UK, 26% in Scandinavia, 8% in Luxembourg and 2% in other countries).

On 9 October 2008, following a major banking and financial crisis in Iceland, the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority took control of the bank. So far, it has not been declared bankrupt, although it has obtained a moratorium on payments from the District Court of Reykjavík and has been suspended from trading in the Iceland Stock Exchange
Iceland Stock Exchange
NASDAQ OMX Iceland or ICEX was established in 1985 as a joint venture of several banks and brokerage firms on the initiative of the central bank. Trading began in 1986 in Icelandic government bonds, and trading in equities began in 1990. Equities trading increased rapidly thereafter...

.

On November 20, 2009, New Kaupthing, the name given to the spin-off of the bank's Icelandic based operations, changed its name to Arion Banki. Non-Icelandic assets are still held within the bank which continues to be called Kaupthing, as of August, 2010.

Kaupthing had cross-shareholdings with other companies such as Exista
Exista
Exista hf. is an Icelandic financial services group formerly listed on the Iceland Stock Exchange. Its activities are based primarily on insurance underwriting and other financial services, although it is also active in investments. The group’s primary market is the Nordic countries.-Ownership:The...

. It also allegedly loaned money to various parties with the purpose of buying Kaupthing shares.

The name

The bank is known as Kaupthing Bank outside of Iceland.

In Iceland, its official name is Kaupþing Banki hf.

Formerly, its official name was Kaupþing Búnaðarbanki hf., but the name was changed as the former name was considered too unwieldy for most people. From 2003 to 2006 the company used the name KB banki for its retail operations in Iceland. In December 2006, however, the bank started using the old name of Kaupþing for its network of high-street banks. It was announced that the change was part of the bank's plan to operate under the same name.

In November 2009 the bank changed its name to Arion Bank.

History

Established in 1982 as a small agency for financial advisory and securities brokerage, Kaupthing has since then been at the forefront of changes in the Icelandic financial market, continually setting trends and being one of the five founding partners of the Icelandic Stock Exchange. In the mid 1990s Kaupthing widened its focus to include opportunities abroad, and becoming the first Icelandic financial institution to operate outside Iceland.

Kaupthing was listed on the Iceland Stock Exchange in October 2000, at which point the original owners of the Bank, the savings banks in Iceland, reduced their holdings, and individuals and institutional investors replaced them as shareholders. Kaupthing Bank shares were listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange (now OMX Nordic Exchange in Stockholm) in 2002.

In September, internal documents from Kaupthing Bank were leaked, from shortly before the collapse of Iceland's banking sector, which led to the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis.

By 9 October 2008, Kaupthing Bank HF was forced into government receivership – only days after a crisis at Landsbanki
Landsbanki
Landsbanki, also commonly known as Landsbankinn in Iceland, is a private Icelandic bank with international operations...

 placed it into government control. Due to the crisis throughout the Icelandic financial system, all trading in the country's equity markets was suspended on 13 October 2008.
On 29 July 2009 Wikileaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...

 exposed a confidential 210 page document listing Kaupthing's exposure to loans ranging from 45 million to 1.25 billion Euros. The leaked presentation revealed the bank had loaned billions of euros to its major shareholders, including a total of €1.43 billion to Exista
Exista
Exista hf. is an Icelandic financial services group formerly listed on the Iceland Stock Exchange. Its activities are based primarily on insurance underwriting and other financial services, although it is also active in investments. The group’s primary market is the Nordic countries.-Ownership:The...

 and subsidiaries which own 23% of the bank.

On 9 December 2009, Daniel Thordarsson, former asset manager, and Stefnir Ingi Agnarsson, former stock broker, both of Kaupthing Hf, were sentenced to eight-month prison terms by the Reykjavik District Court.

The pair was charged with putting in offers to buy Exista shares six times in January and February last year shortly before the close of business, so that the offers would affect the end-of-day value of Exista shares. The charges were of submitting false purchase enquiries and of share price manipulation.

Acquisitions, mergers, subsidiaries

  • 1930 Búnaðarbanki Íslands (English: Agricultural Bank of Iceland) founded in Iceland
  • 1982 Kaupthing hf. founded in Iceland
  • 1998 Kaupthing Luxembourg, S.A. opened
  • 2000 Kaupthing Faroe Islands opened, Kaupthing New York opened, Kaupthing Stockholm opened
  • 2001 Kaupthing Bank Copenhagen opened, Kaupthing Lausanne opened, Sofi acquired in Finland
  • 2002 Aragon acquired in Sweden, JP Nordiska acquired in Sweden, Auðlind acquired in Iceland
  • 2003 Kaupthing merges with Búnaðarbanki Íslands to form Kaupthing Bank, Tyren acquired in Norway, Norvestia acquired in Finland, Kaupthing Limited opened in the UK
  • 2004 A. Sundvall acquired in Norway, FIH acquired in Denmark
  • 2005 Singer & Friedlander acquired in the UK
  • 2006 Kaupthing Limited merges with Singer & Friedlander to form Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander
    Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander
    Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander is a financial services provider offering corporate and investment banking services to small and medium-sized companies, as well as wealth management services for high net worth clients. Primary areas of activity are treasury, investment management, capital markets...

     in the UK
  • 2007 Kaupthing buys Dutch merchant bank NIBC for €3 billion (as of late January 2008, Kaupthing decided to cancel the acquisition of NIBC)
  • 2007 Kaupthing acquired a 20% stake in New Delhi-based Indian investment services company Finoble Advisors with in option to buy the remaining 80% in 5 year's time
  • 2007 Kaupthing buys Belgian private banking and asset management operations of Robeco
    Robeco
    Robeco is a Dutch asset management firm founded in 1929 as the Rotterdamsch Beleggings Consortium . By year end 2009, the company had over € 130 billion of assets under management. It was acquired in 2001 by the Rabobank Groep.Robeco offers assets management services to both institutional and...

     Bank, for an unspecified amount, further strengthening its position in the Benelux
    Benelux
    The Benelux is an economic union in Western Europe comprising three neighbouring countries, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. These countries are located in northwestern Europe between France and Germany...

     market.
  • 2007 Kaupthing hf acquired Derbyshire Offshore, the Isle of Man subsidiary of Derbyshire Building Society, continuing Derbyshire Offshore's irrevocable and binding guarantee for all depositors funds in the new subsidiary, Kaupthing, Singer and Friedlander (Isle of Man) Ltd.
  • 2007 – 2008 Kaupthing launches internet based Kaupthing Edge in the UK, Belgium, Norway, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Luxembourg, the Isle of Man, Austria and Switzerland.
  • 2008 The UK business of Kaupthing Edge, covering £2.5 billion in deposits and 160,000 customers, is taken over by ING Direct after the Financial Services Authority
    Financial Services Authority
    The Financial Services Authority is a quasi-judicial body responsible for the regulation of the financial services industry in the United Kingdom. Its board is appointed by the Treasury and the organisation is structured as a company limited by guarantee and owned by the UK government. Its main...

     closed its London centre of operations.

Kaupthing Edge

Kaupthing Edge was a pan-European retail deposit-taking brand. The purpose of the brand was to diversify liabilities on the Kaupthing balance sheet by currency, customer type (personal/retail) and country. Kaupthing Edge offered two deposit products: a savings account and a fixed-term deposit account. Both were straightforward high-interest products. In Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 customers could choose a third product which was a current account. Kaupthing Edge savings and fixed-term deposit accounts were managed over the Internet with the support of telephony call centres.

Kaupthing Edge was available in eleven countries in Europe:
  • Finland
    Finland
    Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

     – available since October 2007; liabilities taken over by the Finnish Financial Supervision Authority on 9 October 2008
  • Sweden
    Sweden
    Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

     – available since November 2007; accounts closed and all deposits repaid by 20 October 2008.
  • Norway
    Norway
    Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

     – available since January 2008; liabilities taken over by the Norwegian government on 12 October 2008
  • Belgium
    Belgium
    Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

     – available since January 2008, all accounts were frozen on the 9th of October 2008. The amount above 20000€ came available after a takeover by Keytrade bank on 29 March 2009.
  • United Kingdom
    United Kingdom
    The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

     – available since February 2008; accounts transferred to Dutch bank ING Direct on 8 October 2008
  • Germany
    Germany
    Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

     – available since March 2008; 30,000 depositors in Germany are still awaiting repayment of their deposits by the bank. Kaupthing Bank Liquidation Committee has announced that it has secured funds to repay German depositors. German depositors started to get their money back on the 22. of June and are to be paid in full.
  • Luxembourg
    Luxembourg
    Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...

     – available since April 2008
  • Isle of Man
    Isle of Man
    The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...

     – available since April 2008
  • Switzerland
    Switzerland
    Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

     – available since June 2008; in liquidation from 17 November 2008. Depositors partially repaid.
  • Austria
    Austria
    Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

     – available since September 2008; accounts frozen on 9 October, accounts transferred to other banks on 29 October


Kaupthing Edge accounts were protected within the EU by compulsory depositors protection schemes. These schemes are financed by a levy on the respective countries financial industry. In the case of the UK, the government would forward a loan to the scheme against future increased payments in case of a shortfall.

Kaupthing Edge is a word play
Word play
Word play or wordplay is a literary technique in which the words that are used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement...

 on 'cutting edge'.

Ownership

Meidur (later renamed to Exista) acquired a 12% stake of Kaupthing Bank in October 2002.

Government takes control

On 8 October 2008, the UK's FSA transferred the UK deposit accounts to ING. In its statement, "The FSA has determined that Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander no longer meets its threshold conditions, and is likely to be unable to continue to meet its obligations to depositors...The FSA concluded that KSF is in default for the purposes of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme".

On 9 October 2008, the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority took control of Kaupthing after the resignation of the entire board of directors. This came about when "Britain transferred control of the business of Kaupthing Edge, its Internet bank, to ING Direct and put Kaupthing's UK operations into administration" placing Kaupthing in technical default according to loan agreements. The prime minister of Iceland, Geir Haarde
Geir Haarde
Geir Hilmar Haarde was Prime Minister of Iceland from 15 June 2006 to 1 February 2009 and Chairman of the Icelandic Independence Party from 2005 to 2009. Geir initially led a coalition between his party and the Progressive Party...

, has stated that the British government brought down Kaupthing unnecessarily by abusing their power.

The same day the EBK (Swiss Federal Banking Commission) started proceedings under the Swiss Deposit Insurance
Deposit insurance
Explicit deposit insurance is a measure implemented in many countries to protect bank depositors, in full or in part, from losses caused by a bank's inability to pay its debts when due...

 scheme with respect to the Geneva branch of Kaupthing Bank Luxembourg. EKB requested customers of that branch to contact them so that compensation of up to 30000 Swiss Francs could be paid.

In Finland, the Financial Supervision Authority (Rahoitustarkastus) took control over the Finnish branch to prevent funds being transferred to Iceland. It has said that it believes that no one will lose their money. Finnish branch paid all its liabilities to its customers with debt it got from three major Finnish banks. Finnish branch then liquidated all of its assets and paid back debt to the Finnish banks. According to Finnish authorities Kaupthing Edge ended its operations in Finland on 30 January 2009.

WikiLeaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...

 has made available an internal document from Kaupthing Bank from just prior to the collapse of Iceland's banking sector, which led to the 2008–2009 Icelandic financial crisis. The document shows that suspiciously large sums of money were loaned to various owners of the bank, and large debts written off. Kaupthing's lawyers have threatened Wikileaks with legal action, citing banking privacy laws. The leak has caused an uproar in Iceland and may result in criminal charges against the individuals involved.

Related arrests

On 9 March 2011, Robert and Vincent Tchenguiz were arrested in London by the UK's Serious Fraud Office as part of their ongoing investigation in conjunction with Iceland's
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

 Special Prosecutor’s Office into the collapse of Icelandic Bank Kaupthing.

See also

  • Glitnir
    Glitnir (bank)
    Glitnir was an international Icelandic bank. It was created by the state-directed merger of the country's three privately held banks - Alþýðubanki , Verzlunarbanki and Iðnaðarbanki - and one failing publicly held bank - Útvegsbanki - to form Íslandsbanki in 1990...

  • Icesave dispute
  • Landsbanki
    Landsbanki
    Landsbanki, also commonly known as Landsbankinn in Iceland, is a private Icelandic bank with international operations...

  • Central Bank of Iceland
    Central Bank of Iceland
    The Central Bank of Iceland is the central bank or reserve bank of Iceland. It has served in this capacity since 1961, when it was created by an act of the Alþingi out of the central banking department of Landsbanki Íslands, which had had the sole right of note issuance since 1927 and had...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK