Independence Party chairman Bjarni Benediktsson and his father sold millions in shares in Glitnir just months before the bank would crash spectacularly in the autumn.
According to a shareholders list that DV obtained, Bjarni and his father Benedikt Sveinsson sold seven million shares and 50 million shares in Glitnir respectively, in February 2008. Bjarni had bought his shares in 2007.
It should also be pointed out, as Eyjan does, that this transaction took place at the same time that Bjarni chaired the economics and tax committee in parliament. According to the Special Investigative Commission report, then Central Bank chairman Davíð Oddsson, meeting with a few government ministers in February 2008, painted a very bleak picture of the future of the country’s banks.
Bjarni, speaking with DV, would neither confirm nor deny that he sold his shares in Glitnir in February 2008. He denies acting on inside information, though, and says that he saw stormy times ahead for Glitnir, so he bailed out when he could.
(Photo: sunnlendingur.is)
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