Björgólfur Guðmundsson (2 January 1941 – 2 February 2025) was an Icelandic businessman and chairman and owner of West Ham United. Björgólfur was Iceland's second businessman to be worth more than a billion dollars — his son, Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson being the first. He was at one time the majority owner and chairman of the Icelandic bank Landsbanki, the second largest company in Iceland (subsequently nationalised). He was ranked by Forbes magazine in March 2008 as the 1014th-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $1.1 billion.Forbes' Rich List 2008 In December of the same year Forbes revalued his net worth to $0, and on 31 July 2009 he was declared bankrupt by the Icelandic courts with debts of almost £500 million (96 billion ISK).Icelandic bank chief in £500m of hot water
Björgólfur was described in an article written by Jamie Jackson of The Guardian as "a former footballer, furniture packer and law student, a recovering alcoholic of 30 years and an old-fashioned philanthropist". In the 1990s he was sentenced to 12 months in prison, suspended for two years, for bookkeeping offences, having faced around 450 charges. He went to Russia, remade his fortune and returned to Iceland, where he also had interests in shipping, publishing, food, communications and property.
Early life and marriage Björgólfur was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, to Guðmundur Pétur Ólafsson (1911–79), a driver, and Kristín Davíðsdóttir, growing up on Framnesvegur. Björgólfur had an elder brother, Davíð, and three sisters.Ingi Freyr Vilhjálmsson, Hamskiptin: Þegar allt varð falt á Íslandi (Reykjavík: Veröld, 2014), p. 53.Thor Bjorgolfsson and Andrew Cave, Billions to Bust—And Back: How I Made, Lost and Rebuilt a Fortune, and What I Learned on the Way (London: Profile, 2014), p. 20. By the account of Björgólfur's son, Björgólfur was from a working-class background, and his father Guðmundur was affected by a stroke around 1945.
The young Björgólfur graduated from the Commercial College of Iceland in 1962'Björgólfur Guðmundsson', Stúdentafagnaður 2012, . and was an organiser of the Independence Party youth wing, described by Roger Boyes as 'a promising young man, handsome, clean-cut, with reasonable English and a smooth, reassuring manner'.Roger Boyes, Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), pp. 63-64, 71. 76.
Accounts vary, but it has been claimed that in 1958 Björgólfur was asked by the family of Thor Philip Axel Jensen, Iceland's foremost businessman of the time, to accompany Hallgrímur Fr. Hallgrímsson to the US to bring back Hallgrímur's daughter Margrét Þóra Hallgrímsson, who had left her first marriage to Haukur Clausen to marry the American Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell.Roger Boyes, Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), pp. 63-64; Ingi Freyr Vilhjálmsson, Hamskiptin: Þegar allt varð falt á Íslandi (Reykjavík: Veröld, 2014), p. 55. Björgólfur's son suggests, however, that the two met only after Þóra's return to Iceland following her split with Rockwell.Thor Bjorgolfsson and Andrew Cave, Billions to Bust—And Back: How I Made, Lost and Rebuilt a Fortune, and What I Learned on the Way (London: Profile, 2014), p. 19. Either way, Björgólfur married Þóra in 1963 and adopted her children by Clausen (Örn Friðrik, b. 1951) and Rockwell (Hallgrímur, b. 1954; Margrét, 1955–89; and Evelyn Bentína). The couple subsequently had a child of their own, Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson (b. 1967).
From 1962 to 1977, Björgólfur was the founder and director of Dósagerðin hf.; from 1977 to 1986 he was the director of Hafskip, with further responsibilities for its various daughter companies in the Europe and the USA. During much of this period, Björgólfur was, in the estimation of his son Björgólfur Thor, 'a highly functional alcoholic', but went into rehab in Hazelden, Minnesota, in 1978 and did not drink thereafter.Thor Bjorgolfsson and Andrew Cave, Billions to Bust—and Back: How I Made, Lost, and Rebuilt a Fortune, and What I Learned on the Way (London: Profile, 2014), pp. 13-15.
Hafskip affair The shipping business Hafskip was the main competitor to Iceland's established shipping operator Eimskip (co-founded by the father of Björgólfur's wife). In Roger Boyes's account,
initially there was more than enough business for both shipping companies, transporting supplies to the U.S. base. But when an American company started to compete on the route, Hafskip floundered. Björgólfur borrowed to expand, but in the early 1980s—without a bank in his pocket or sophisticated financial instruments available—he struggled to keep the cash flow going. According to Illugi Jökulsson, who has written a book about the Hafskip affair, Björgólfur was suddenly undermined when his bank, Útvegsbankinn, declared his company in default on its loans.Roger Boyes, Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), pp. 64-65.
Björgólfur was prosecuted for bookkeeping irregularities, receiving a twelve-month suspended jail sentence, but in Illugi Jökulsson's interpretation, this
was a crude act to dispose of an Eimskip rival (which later took on Hafskip’s ships). More, it was an attempt by the Progressive Party to profit from the downfall of a man who was so clearly aligned with the Independence Party'.Roger Boyes, Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), p. 65.
The affair had a considerable effect on Björgólfur and his son, and both at times portrayed their subsequent business activities as a way to take revenge on the people they saw as their persecutors and to regain their reputations.Roger Boyes, Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), pp. 64-66. One of the avenues through which Björgólfur worked to restore his reputation in the years following the Hafskip affair was by starting a successful alcoholics' rehabilitation centre in Reykjavík.Roger Boyes, Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), p. 66.'Þeir byggðu Vog og réðu Þórarin' (5 August 15).
From 1986 to 1991, Björgólfur was the director and owner of Icestar Ltd. in Copenhagen and a consultant on the shipping business for AMA Agencies in London.
Beverage businessman in Saint Petersburg In 1991, in the wake of the Hafskip affair, Björgólfur began running the brewery and soft drinks unit of Pharmaco, a pharmaceuticals group.
In the early 1990s Pharmaco was required to sell off its unneeded bottling machines, and Björgólfur took the opportunity, through a partner, Ingimar Haukur Ingimarsson, who was already based in St Petersburg, to co-found Bravo Brewery alongside Magnús Þorsteinsson (chairman of Avion Group) and Björgólfur's own son Björgólfur Thor. Notwithstanding legal wrangles with Ingimar Haukur, Bravo Brewery became a success.Roger Boyes, Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), pp. 67-68.
The Icelandic businessmen, together with Russian partners, founded the bottling company Baltic Bottling Plant, which was sold to Pepsi. They moved to brewing and founded the brewing company Bravo International OOO in August 1996 which became Bravo International JSC in December 1997.. Another copy: . An automatic translation: Нерсесов, Юрий (23 January 2003). Жертвы иудейской войны. stringer-news.ru website. Retrieved 3 June 2021. Bravo Brewery became a success with the premium beer Botchkarov.
In 2005 an article in The Guardian noted that in the 1990s the three Icelandic businessmen "were not only ploughing money into the country but doing it in the city regarded as the Russian mafia capital. That investment was being made in the drinks sector, seen by the mafia as the industry of choice." In St. Petersburg, the Committee on External Economic Relations in Saint Petersburg's Mayor's office was responsible for foreigners in Saint Petersburg. The committee's chairman was Vladimir Putin. Competitors in the St. Petersburg brewing market faced problems. Ilya Weismann, deputy director of competing beverage company Baltic, was assassinated on 10 January 2000. Soon afterwards Baltic director general Aslanbek Chochiev was also assassinated. One competing St Petersburg brewery burned to the ground. Bravo, however, became the fastest growing brewery in Russia. Heineken bought the extraordinarily successful brewery for $400m in 2002 and Björgólfur returned to Iceland.Ingi Freyr Vilhjálmsson, Hamskiptin: Þegar allt varð falt á Íslandi (Reykjavík: Veröld, 2014), p. 54.
The boom years: chairman of Landsbanki
Late in 2002, Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson and Björgólfur Guðmundsson's holding company Samson ehf. gained 45% controlling share of Landsbanki, Iceland's second largest bank, for about 12.3 billion ISK in a controversial privatization.Guðmundur Magnússon, Thorsararnir: auður – völd – örlög (Reykjavík: Almenna bókafélagið, 2005), p. 354; Questions over Landsbanki's new shareholder /Euromoney magazine The board was announced in February 2003, with the chairman being Björgólfur Guðmundsson.Guðmundur Magnússon, Thorsararnir: auður – völd – örlög (Reykjavík: Almenna bókafélagið, 2005), p. 354
Björgólfur became famous and very popular in Iceland during this time as the country's leading philanthropist, both through the direct contributions of himself and his wife Þóra, and through contributions made by Landsbanki (where he started a special service with the tag "Give help to a good cause"): "dressed in his trademark pin-striped suits he came to be [...] loved by the public, and was for a while perhaps more influential in the island's cultural life than even the Minister of Culture, who in effect was downgraded to second fiddle in many opening ceremonies".Eiríkur Bergmann, Iceland and the International Financial Crisis: Boom, Bust and Recovery (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), p. 72. Particularly major funding went to the National Theatre of Iceland for the building of a new stage; the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, which received ISK 25m for touring; the Listahátíð í Reykjavík; the Icelandic Opera for a staging of Tosca; the Reykjavík Menningarnótt; the Football Association of Iceland; Grafarvogskirkja; the Icelandic Literary Society; the University of Iceland; RÚV for domestic programming; the theatre group Vesturport; the University of Akureyri; 160 artists in Klink og Bank; and the artist Ólafur Elíasson.Ingi Freyr Vilhjálmsson, Hamskiptin: Þegar allt varð falt á Íslandi (Reykjavík: Veröld, 2014), pp. 51-67; 261-68 (at p. 59). Particularly since the 2008 economic crash, however, it has been pointed out that by accident or design this massive patronage of the artistic and intellectual life of Iceland tended to silence critical commentary on the banking boom, helping to cause the collapse.Ingi Freyr Vilhjálmsson, Hamskiptin: Þegar allt varð falt á Íslandi (Reykjavík: Veröld, 2014), pp. 67-82, 165-206.