Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson

Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson (born 19 March 1967), known internationally as Thor Bjorgolfsson, and colloquially in Iceland as Bjöggi, is an Icelandic businessman and entrepreneur.

He is also chairman and founder of Novator Partners.

Björgólfur Thor has built and invested in a number of larger companies and smaller startups, including Actavis, a pharmaceutical company; WOM Play - mobile telecoms challenger brands in Chile, Colombia and Poland; and Zwift - an online platform for indoor cycling.

Other companies invested in by Björgólfur Thor and Novator include Deliveroo, Monzo, Stripe, Cazoo, Xantis Pharma, Klang, and Lockwood Publishing.

Graduating from the prestigious Commercial College of Iceland in 1987, he followed in the footsteps of some of his siblings and moved to the US, in a move he has portrayed as an attempt to escape an Iceland where he felt an outsider.

He began higher education at the University of California, San Diego, later transferring to The Stern School of Business at New York University, graduating with a B.S. in marketing in 1991.

While studying, Björgólfur Thor took a variety of vacation jobs, including managing events at Reykjavík's two biggest clubs: Tunglið and Skuggabarinn.

As a result, in 1991, he met Kristín Ólafsdóttir, now a film-maker; they married in 2010.

In 1991, Björgólfur Thor went to Russia along with his father and a friend, Magnús Þorsteinsson.

The Icelandic businessmen, together with Russian partners, founded the bottling company Baltic Bottling Plant, which they sold to Pepsi.

Next they founded a brewing company, originally called ООО "Торговый дом "РОСА" and eventually registered as Bravo International JSC by December 1997. Six companies registered in Limassol, Cyprus were responsible for establishing Bravo and Björgólfur Thor was president of all of them. Bravo Brewery became the fastest-growing brewery in Russia at the time, primarily through the production of the premium beer Botchkarov. Heineken bought the brewery for $325m in 2002.

In 1999, Björgólfur Thor, along with an asset management unit from Deutsche Bank, founded Actavis, and invested in a privatisation in Bulgaria.

In 2000, Russia opened an honorary consulate of Iceland in St. Petersburg.

After leaving Russia, Björgólfur Thor started investing in several Icelandic firms in 2002, while continuing his international investments.

Late in 2002, Björgólfur Thor and Björgólfur Guðmundsson's holding company Samson ehf.

gained a 45% controlling share of Landsbanki, Iceland's second largest bank, for about ISK12m in a controversial privatization.

The board was announced in February 2003, with the chairman being Björgólfur Thor's father.

Björgólfur Thor also became the main owner and chairman of the Straumur Investment Bank.

Björgólfur Thor was the first Icelander to join Forbes magazine 's list of the world's richest people in 2005.

They have three children, Daniel (b. 2005), Lorenz (b. 2009), and Bentina (b. 2011).

They currently live primarily in London, United Kingdom.

Magnús Þorsteinsson was appointed Honorary Vice-Consul, while Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson was appointed Consul, he resigned from the position on 16 May 2006.

In his book, Billions to Bust and Back, Björgólfur Thor chronicles his time in St Petersburg, detailing how criminal elements tried to intimidate him into giving them access to his business and explaining which security measures he relied on to prevent them from doing so.

By 2006, he was a celebrity for his business success, with an eight-page-long profile in the Sunday supplement of the Icelandic newspaper Morgunblaðið written about him.

He has been declared as "Iceland's first billionaire"; and was ranked as the 249th-richest person in the world by Forbes magazine in 2007 - up from 350th the previous year - with a net worth of $3.5 billion.

However, due to the financial crisis of 2007–2010, Thor lost close to his entire fortune and he faced personal bankruptcy.

He then worked out a complex deal with his creditors to pay off his debts while holding on to his key investments.

Two of Björgólfur Thor’s companies, the banks Landsbanki and Straumur, went bankrupt following the 2008–11 Icelandic financial crisis and the government of Iceland assumed responsibility for them.

On 6 October Landsbanki was put into receivership and liquidation, and on 9 March Straumur was nationalised by the Financial Supervisory Authority of Iceland (FME).

Following the crash, Björgólfur Thor had €650m of personal guarantees.

Rather than declare bankruptcy, he instead took two years to negotiate and restructure the debt with his creditors, most notably Deutsche Bank.

Björgólfur Thor was heavily criticized for his actions leading to the crisis.

Two days after the publication of the Icelandic government report on the financial crisis on 12 April 2010, Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson issued a public apology in the Icelandic newspaper, Fréttablaðið, for his role in the crisis:"I the undersigned, Björgólfur Thor, request forgiveness from all Icelanders for my role in the asset- and debt-bubble that led to the collapse of the Icelandic banking system. I request your forgiveness for my complacency towards the danger signs which arose. I request forgiveness for having not succeeded in following my instincts when I realised the danger. I request your forgiveness."He defended his reputation by disputing government and journalistic criticisms of his role in the 2008 financial crisis on his website, through letters to newspapers, and through legal action.

Björgólfur Thor published an autobiography in 2014 about the ordeal titled 'Billions to Bust and Back'.

Björgólfur Thor reappeared on the Forbes rich list in 2015 with a net worth of $1.3 billion, and as of August 2023 had a net worth of $2.5 billion.

Björgólfur Thor is heir to a long family legacy in Icelandic business and politics.

His great-grandfather was the legendary Danish-born Icelandic entrepreneur Thor Jensen, who helped introduce industrial capitalism to the country in the early years of the twentieth century.

The eighth of Thor Jensen's eleven children was Björgólfur's grandmother Margrét Þorbjörg Thors Hallgrímsson, whose daughter Þóra Hallgrímsson had Björgólfur as her only child by her third husband Björgólfur Guðmundsson.

Björgólfur Thor grew up in the Reykjavík suburb of Vesturbær.

A sketch of Björgólfur Thor's early life is offered by Ármann Þorvaldsson: