Sigrún Davíðsdóttir's Icelog

Iceland is a country where people have a strong sense of what family they belong to and most people know their family history quite well. Now that the story of Thor Jensen and his offspring Bjorgolfur Thor Bjorgolfsson is about to premiere as a film, it comes to mind that Jensen’s story is no less controversial than the one of his great-grandchild. There were people who thought that Jensen was a ruthless businessman who left losses to others while he himself walked away unscathed.

In 1907 Thor Jensen founded a company with another entrepreneur, Petur J Thorsteinsson. Thorsteinsson was at the time probably the richest Icelanders. He made his money up in Bildudalur in West Iceland running a shipping company and fishing and fish-processing company. When his businesses were at their biggest around 400 people worked for him. Quite something at a time since the population of Iceland was, in 1900, 78.000.

Thorsteinsson was an illustrious name and the new company he founded with Thor Jensen was called PJ Thorsteinsson & Co. Thorsteinsson had a long relationship with the Danish banks at the time and had been several decades in business. The aim of the new company was to get a share capital of ISK1m, at the time the size of the Icelandic state budget. They never quite reached that goal but the company was nicknamed ‘The Million Company.’ It built up a harbour at Videy, the tiny island off Reykjavik, and a vast empire related to fish-processing, even with a train running on the island to transport coal, salt and other goods.

Jensen and Thorsteinsson could combine their plans and ambitions in one company but it turned out that they could not work together. Thorsteinsson left the company though it still bore his name but he left his capital in it. Jensen now ran the company but four years after Thorsteinsson left, it went bankrupt. Thorsteinsson lost most of his once so vast wealth. Jensen was more fortunate, with his wealth if not intact then at least not badly dented. At the time, there was an investigation into the affair, where Jensen famously couldn’t remember a thing about the whole debacle.

Many years later, after Thorsteinsson had died, Jensen wrote his autobiography. He had now regained his memory and squarely blamed everyone except himself for the bankruptcy. Mostly he blamed Thorsteinsson even though the bankruptcy happened years after Thorsteinsson left the company. This was before the era of offshoring and it was pretty clear who had lost and who hadn’t.

Stories run in families in Iceland but the families of Jensen and Thorsteinsson became related through marriages. It’s been a quiet consent in both families not to discuss the demise of ‘The Million Company’ at family gatherings. The story was later told in a book, published in 1990, about the ‘Bildudalur King’ by Asgeir Jakobsson. The minor shareholders of Landsbanki and others who lost money on Landsbanki, such as pension funds, might be amused, or not amused, by the strong parallels of Jensen and his great-grandchild who from the beginning of his business entreprises was strongly drawn to the story of his forefather.

This is a family with spectacular success and no less spectacular bankruptcies, as is born out by ‘The Million Company,’ by Bjorgolfsson’s father who ran the shipping company Hafskip aground in the 80s and then father and son being the main shareholders of the now collapsed Landsbanki and Straumur, not to mention bankruptcies related to them such as the travel company XL and Eimskip.

The Thorsteinsson’s family might not be too amused by the story in the new film on Thor’ saga, if this film recycles only the Jensen saga from his autobiography. Historically aware viewers will wonder if the film is yet another example of plus ça change.*

*This log was inspired by a conversation with a descendant of Thorsteinsson who wanted to make me aware of the fact that there is another side to the Jensen’s own story of his success. Icelanders have long a long memory when it comes to families.

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