Landsbanki depositors receive final payout
DEPOSITORS in the failed Guernsey-based branch of Icelandic bank Landsbanki have finally recovered the last they will get of their monies, having lost more than 8p for every pound they had with the bank.
Liquidators from Deloitte have paid a final distribution of monies, in all recovering 91.56p in the pound.
The vocal depositors action group has marked the final payment with another broadside against the island, its banking sector, regulator, and particularly Guernsey's then chief minister, Lyndon Trott.
'Do a Google search and you don't have to search long to discover Guernsey's banking failure and indelible "black mark",' said Neil Dickens, chairman of the Landsbanki Guernsey Depositors Action Group, who said he lost, or had 'had stolen', some £12,000.
He accused Deputy Trott of 'pure stupidity'.
'As an action group, we've lost just under £10m. Guernsey has lost a whole lot more.'
The depositors called for the States to compensate them when Landsbanki Guernsey collapsed at the height of the global financial crisis in October 2008.
At that time the bank had some £120m. of assets, but nearly half that sum had been 'upstreamed' to parent banks in the UK.
Given the resulting losses for depositors, compensating them from public monies could have resulted in a £10m. loss to the Guernsey taxpayer.
'For the States of Guernsey to have "backed" Landsbanki Guernsey depositors in the manner that the letter writer suggests would have directly involved spending taxpayers' money to cover the residual losses not recovered by the joint liquidators,' said Deputy Trott.
