Sigrún Davíðsdóttir's Icelog

The Icelandic financial collapse and the pension funds

with 3 comments

The Icelandic pension funds suffered heavy losses around and after the collapse of the Icelandic banks and consequently the Icelandic financial system. Today, an investigative committee published a report of 700p, on various aspects of the pension funds (a summary in English). In total, the committee calculates that losses during 2008-2010 amounted to ISK480bn, almost €3bn.*

Interestingly, the Association of Icelandic Pension Funds had earlier done its own investigation, of a few pages, concluding that the funds had done remarkably well. The new report paints a darker picture. More on the findings later.

*The number is corrected from an earlier version.

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Written by Sigrún Davídsdóttir

February 3rd, 2012 at 9:59 pm

Posted in Iceland

3 Responses to 'The Icelandic financial collapse and the pension funds'

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  1. “Interestingly, the Association of Icelandic Pension Funds had earlier done its own investigation, of a few pages, concluding that the funds had done remarkably well. ”

    Dude!

    The investigative committee you are referring to was established by the Association of Pension Funds. You left that part out.

    The Association had not done its own investigation as you imply. It did however establish a “lessons learned committee”, which published its findings in March 2010. That was not an investigation into the losses by the pension funds in the collapse.

    Kristján Birgission

    4 Feb 12 at 12:04 am

  2. The Association, LL, started off with the lessons learnt and it appeared for a while that it wasn’t going to go any further (only in Icelandic: http://www.ll.is/files/bchagfbdbg/Skyrsla_lardomsnefndar_26_03_2010.pdf. Right, the independent committee was finally set up by the Association after the SIC report was published in April 2010. The decision was taken in June 2010, almost two years after the crash and after severe criticism of the LL reluctance to investigate the matter.

  3. True, it took a lot of outside pressure for them to finally initiate a proper investigation.

    Kristján Birgisson

    4 Feb 12 at 10:50 am

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