Baugur's invasion is unlikely to cease
With his flowing flaxen hair and penchant for black clothing and brooding photo shoots, you might be forgiven for mistaking Jon Asgeir Johannesson for a member of a 1980s Scandinavian heavy metal outfit.
Indeed his company’s name – meaning “ring of strength” in an ancient Viking language – sounds a bit like a band, bringing to mind images of stone-washed denim, overblown power ballads and Tolkeinesque videos.
Most British shoppers would be hard-pushed to identify the Icelandic businessman as the most powerful man on the UK high street.
But the executive chairman of Icelandic investment group Baugur does have a bit of a rock-and-roll history.
A case involving allegations by a former colleague that he used company funds to hire escort girls on board a 62 ft yacht named Thee Viking was settled out of court in 2003.
But Mr Johannesson’s latest courtroom adventure may mean the Icelandic group could soon be setting up headquarters on our shores.
The 40-year-old faces a potential ban from being a company director in Iceland following a conviction for breaking Icelandic accounting laws.
According to the Financial Times, Baugur’s lawyers are considering moving the group, which has a turnover of £9 billion, to the UK in a bid to keep Mr Johannesson at the helm.
“Which of our companies here in Iceland will be moved either to the UK, Denmark or the Faroe Islands remains to be seen,” Mr Johannesson said at the weekend.
“We are looking deeply into it now.”
“The fact is nobody – neither shareholders, banks, auditors nor members of the boards – wants me to leave the boards of our companies.”
It would be an interesting twist in this Icelandic fairy tale if the company, which was founded by Mr Johannesson and his father as a budget supermarket called Bonus in 1989, were to redomicile in the UK.
After all it would make sense from a tax point of view – 80 per cent of its assets are located here.
In recent years Baugur has embarked on a UK shopping spree that would make even the most hardened shopaholic shudder.
Its investments include high street names like House of Fraser, Karen Millen, Hamleys and even – you have to chuckle – Iceland.
But in recent weeks it has hit the headlines when it abandoned its bid to buy out struggling menswear firm Moss Bros and over its disposal of loss-making budget clothes shop MK One.
Despite the gloom in UK retail, Baugur still sticks by its aim to be the world’s biggest retail group by 2012.
And if the symbolism at its London offices is anything to go by, a spot of bother on the UK high street is not going to deter it from its ambitions of world domination.
Visitors to Baugur’s London offices are welcomed by a 10-ft-tall statue of a Viking, nicknamed Lief the Lucky, armed with a sword and – with a touch of rock-and-roll swagger – a Fender Stratocaster guitar strapped to its back.
