History
Established in 1982 as a small agency for financial advisory and securities brokerage, Kaupthing has since then been at the forefront of changes in the Icelandic financial market, continually setting trends and being one of the five founding partners of the Icelandic Stock Exchange. In the mid 1990s Kaupthing widened its focus to include opportunities abroad, and becoming the first Icelandic financial institution to operate outside Iceland.
Kaupthing was listed on the Iceland Stock Exchange in October 2000, at which point the original owners of the Bank, the savings banks in Iceland, reduced their holdings, and individuals and institutional investors replaced them as shareholders. Kaupthing Bank shares were listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange (now OMX Nordic Exchange in Stockholm) in 2002.
In September, internal documents from Kaupthing Bank were leaked: Wikileaks exposed a confidential 210 page document listing Kaupthing's exposure to loans ranging from 45 million to 1.25 billion Euros. The leaked presentation revealed the bank had loaned billions of euros to its major shareholders, including a total of €1.43 billion to Exista and subsidiaries which own 23% of the bank. By 9 October 2008, Kaupthing Bank HF was forced into government receivership – only days after a crisis at Landsbanki placed it into government control. Due to the crisis throughout the Icelandic financial system, all trading in the country's equity markets was suspended on 13 October 2008. The events were followed by the collapse of Iceland's banking sector, which led to the 2008–2012 Icelandic financial crisis.
On 9 December 2009, Daniel Thordarsson, former asset manager, and Stefnir Ingi Agnarsson, former stock broker, both of Kaupthing Hf, were sentenced to eight-month prison terms by the Reykjavik District Court.
The pair was charged with putting in offers to buy Exista shares six times in January and February last year shortly before the close of business, so that the offers would affect the end-of-day value of Exista shares. The charges were of submitting false purchase enquiries and of share price manipulation.
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