A village in the north of Iceland facing very difficult economic times received help from an unexpected source.
As reported in the Grapevine, the village of Flateyri has been experiencing quite a bit of misfortune lately. Although the West Fjords as a region has the lowest unemployment rates in the country, the bankruptcy of Flateyri’s fish factory and the closure of the care home there has slashed economic opportunities for residents of the village.
But last weekend, a buyer for the fish factory was found. The news came as a surprise to many locals, including the author of the Grapevine piece Neil Holdsworth. As he points out himself, “investors are not exactly queuing up to by fish processing plants in remote parts of Iceland, these days. It is really good news, by all accounts, for the village and the wider area.”
If accounts reported in the gossip magazine Séð og Heyrt are to be believed, the buyer of the fish factory is Gylfi Þór Sigurðsson, a footballer who has played for Reading FC and is now with 1899 Hoffenheim.
Gylfi is himself a Reykjavík native, and the rumour has not been confirmed, but his father, Sigurður Aðalsteinsson, was one of the founders of the company Lotna ehf., which recently bought a series of bankrupt properties in the area.
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