Icelandic bank savers expect to get nearly all their money back
MONEY which councils invested in Icelandic banks which then collapsed during the credit crunch is pouring back into authority coffers.
And individual savers who saw millions of pounds frozen by Iceland's financial collapse are also seeing far higher returns than had been feared.
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Protesters outside the Derbyshire Building Society headquarters in Duffield following the collapse of Icelandic banks in 2009. They feared they would lose a large proportion of their savings invested through a subsidiary of the building society.
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Leonard Orton has been told he will receive 90% of his investment.
Yesterday, a ruling in the country's supreme court led to East Staffordshire Borough Council announcing that it expected to get back "almost all" of the money it invested in Landsbanki.
Amber Valley Borough Council revealed it had already received 73% of the £1 million it had invested in Kaupthing.
And investors whose accounts were passed from a Derbyshire Building Society subsidiary to an offshore Icelandic bank before its collapse reported they would get much more cash back than expected.
Savers with Derbyshire Offshore were left out of pocket after the building society passed on their accounts to Icelandic bank Kaupthing, Singer and Friedlander (KSF) Isle Of Man.
Among those left panicking by the crash were Leonard and Kathleen Orton, now aged 79 and 84, of Alresford, Hampshire, who feared they would lose £190,000 of their £290,000 investment.
But Mr Orton said the future was now looking brighter. He said: "We are expecting to have had 80% back by the end of this month and 90% by 2014.
"Obviously we would prefer to get 100% with interest but you can't help but feel pleased."
Yesterday's Icelandic Supreme Court ruling means that Landsbanki, another of the collapsed banks, will give priority to UK investors when it hands back people their cash.
One of those was East Staffordshire Borough Council, which was due to see its investments mature in 2009.
Chief executive Andy O'Brien said: "This judgement means that UK authorities' claims have been recognised as deposits with priority status over other creditors' claims.
"We anticipate that our investments will be paid back first and we should recover almost all of the money we deposited with Landsbanki."
The authority also had £2million invested in Kaupthing, Singer and Fried- lander and says more than half of this has been recovered.
A spokesman for Amber Valley Borough Council said 73% of the £1 million it had invested in KSF had already been returned and that it was due to get 84%.
2 Comments
by tonycavanna
Saturday, November 12 2011, 11:04AM
“Another attempt at positive spin on the disastrous situation The Derbyshire Building Society put their IOM depositors in when they sold our deposits to Kaupthing who were trying to shore up their position by buying depositors in Europe.
It has taken over 3 years to get 80% of what we are owed with the liquidation process dragging out to 2017, this doesn't take into account the ravages of inflation and the lack of interest payments over this time will have on the real value of our "investments".
By the way scratchyitup Iceland is not paying the depositors of KSFIOM. We have to wait in line as unsecured creditors and will get only the meagre scraps left over from the Kaupthing corpse at some indeterminate time in the future. This is despite the following given to us by Kaupthing at the time of the take over: "Not only are deposits held with Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander in the Isle of Man covered by the Depositors' Compensation Scheme contained in the Isle Of Man Banking Business (Compensation of Depositors) regulations 1991, all deposits, including those of Derbyshire Offshore clients, are also fully guaranteed by Kaupthing Hf - with this guarantee customers have peace of mind that their savings are fully secured."”
by scratchyitup
Wednesday, November 09 2011, 1:06PM
“So Iceland, who went down the default route, are paying back their creditors only 4 years after Broon saved the world by clicking the 200,000,000,000 copies print button.
Meanwhile in the coutries following the QE and ZIRP pattern, we today have Italian bonds at a record EUSSR rate and a good chance of implosion of the whole system.
If only, hey?”