Iceland

All Saints looks set to change hands after liquidators to two collapsed Icelandic banks put their stakes in the high street clothing retailer up for sale, The Telegraph reported. The liquidators of Kaupthing and Glitnir have appointed Ernst & Young to advise on the sale process. The accountancy and advisory firm is already in contact with a "select" group of interested investors, according to a source, with a deal likely to value the retailer at about £140m. All Saints said that the banks "are looking to exit and realise a return on their investment".

Authorities in the U.K. and Iceland arrested nine men, including a pair of high-profile U.K. property moguls, in connection with the collapse of Iceland's Kaupthing Bank hf, the latest arrests connected to the failure of the island's banking system, The Wall Street Journal reported. The U.K.-led probe is examining the extent to which funds were withdrawn from the bank prior to Kaupthing's 2008 collapse and who was involved. The British investigation is being conducted in addition to a separate probe by Icelandic prosecutors. Among those arrested Wednesday were U.K.

Icelandic President Olafur R. Grimsson said Friday he will take a few days to decide whether to ratify a bill that would solve a long-running, politically bruising dispute with Britain and the Netherlands over a $5 billion repayment, Bloomberg reported. Icelandic lawmakers voted earlier this week in favor of the deal to repay funds invested by British and Dutch citizens in Internet bank Icesave that were lost when it collapsed in late 2008. Finance Minister Steingrimur J.

Three Icelandic banks that were taken into state ownership following their collapse in 2008 could go fully public within about five years and may be further restructured in the meantime, according to the director general of Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority, or FME, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Gunnar T. Andersen said two of the three largest Icelandic banks could be merged. The three banks - Landsbanki, Kaupthing and Glitnir - failed in 2008 and were nationalized as the financial crisis gripped the country. They have since been reorganized.

International accountancy group PwC is alleged to have missed numerous warning signs about the state of Iceland’s banks long before they collapsed in 2008, according to a leaked investigation that exposes widespread irregularities among the doomed lenders, the Irish Times reported. The findings were made by a team of international investigators in reports commissioned by the Icelandic special prosecutor, who is investigating possible criminal wrongdoing before the bank crash.

Iceland's finance minister said today he backed a deal with Britain and the Netherlands over debts incurred in a bailout of depositors in a failed bank, while opposition parties were more cautious, the Irish Times reported. Icelandic negotiators said yesterday they had a draft deal offering better terms than one rejected by voters in March for repaying the $5 billion (€3.8 billion) the two countries spent reimbursing British and Dutch Icesave account holders.

The Icelandic economy showed its first growth for two years in the third quarter, helped by rising household consumption, the Irish Times reported. Iceland's top three banks were hit hard by the global credit crisis in late 2008 after expanding rapidly across Europe and the crash triggered a deep recession and the island's gross domestic product (GDP) fell 6.8 per cent in 2009. But, helped by an IMF-led bailout, the economy and currency have stabilised.

Iceland is betting its decision two years ago to force bondholders to pay for the banking system’s collapse may help it rebound faster than Ireland, Bloomberg reported. Iceland’s taxpayers face a smaller debt burden than their Irish counterparts, where the government’s guarantee of the financial system in 2008 backfired this year when the banks came close to insolvency. Iceland’s budget deficit will be 6.3 percent of gross domestic product this year and will vanish by 2012, compared with the 32 percent shortfall in Ireland, the European Commission estimates.

Iceland's business lobby said on Tuesday it had seen the outline of a draft deal on repaying Britain and the Netherlands and that it was much improved from one rejected by voters in March, Reuters reported. The head of the business lobby spoke after an Icelandic television station reported that a draft deal had been reached which would involve Iceland repaying 40-60 billion Icelandic crowns ($356-533 million) to the British and Dutch.

The International Monetary Fund said it needs more time to gauge the impact on Iceland’s finances of plans to forgive mortgage obligations as the government responds to last month’s protests demanding debt relief, Bloomberg reported. “Broad agreement has been reached on policies that can deliver program objectives but more time is needed to assess the impact of new measures under consideration to facilitate household debt restructuring,” the IMF said in a statement.