Not Iceland the frozen food retailer, although that could be included too.
Retail magnate Sir Philip Green, owner of Top Shop and BHS among others, has visited Iceland to see if he might buy some of the retail businesses bust Icelandic banks have snapped up through lending to mysterious holding company Baugur.
Baugur owns all or part of House of Fraser, Hamleys, Oasis, Karen Millen, Woolworths and the eponymous frozen food retailer, plus much else besides. Today Amstrad owner Alan Sugar announced that he’d bought four per cent of Woollies.
Green says he’s interested in buying the debt, in other words what the Icelandic banks (or rather the government, as they’ve all been nationalised) think they can get for their stakes in these businesses. As the Icelandic government needs money in a hurry this is likely to be rather less than their most recent market valuations.
Green is talking about spending up to £2bn. To do this someone has to lend it to him, of course.
But Green’s track record shows that he certainly knows a bargain.
And there wouldn’t be a thing the UK Competition Commission could do about it.