Welcome to Iceland Guest - Your Online Travel Guide.

Iceland Guest is an information website for your travel to Iceland. On this site you can get all the tourist information you need for your vacation in Iceland. We hope that you will find this online travel guide useful in planning your holidays in Iceland.

About Iceland
Iceland is a refreshingly unconventional travel destination. The Icelandic nature is unspoilt, exotic and mystical with its spouting geysers, active volcanoes, tumbling waterfalls, towering mountains, vast lava plains and magical lakes. Iceland’s fjords, glaciers and highland plains present visitors with some of the most beautiful and enchanting places they will ever see, as well as a rare feeling of utter tranquillity.

For travelers on a quest for action, Iceland’s pristine nature offers great potential for outdoor activities such as snowmobiling, horse riding, cave exploring, hiking, swimming, skiing, river rafting, kayaking and mountain safaris on modified four-wheel drives, to name but a few. Iceland supports a surprisingly diverse Nordic flora and fauna and is an ideal place for ornithology enthusiasts, while also offering some of the world’s best whale watching destinations.

About Reykjavik
Reykjavík sometimes feels like a cosmopolitan capital and a tiny seaside village - all wrapped up in one. But Reykjavík has the best of both worlds; the qualities of a modern, forward-looking society complemented by a close connection to Iceland‚s beautiful and unspoilt nature.

Reykjavík’s legendary nightlife is bolstered by plentiful cultural and social happenings in addition to an abundance of first-class restaurants. The size of Reykjavik city centre is also limited enough to allow for easy navigation by foot. Reykjavík has been described as a young and daring city that is characterized by strong contrasts. Conveniently small, clean and safe, it is more or less free from the major problems that haunt many other capitals. Big city events are frequent, the winter lights festival finished recently with thousands of participants and more tourist at this time of the year than we are used to.

in Focus

3.5.2007

Icelandic Investment Company Novator sells BTC to AIG

Investment company Novator, owned by Icelandic entrepreneur Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson, sold its controlling stake in the Bulgarian telecommunications company BTC to the US-based Global Investment Group AIG yesterday. According to Fréttabladid, BTC is worth ISK 160 billion (USD 2.5 billion, EUR 1.8 billion).

Novator owned 85 percent of shares in BTC and booked a profit of ISK 55 to 60 billion (USD 858 million to 936 million, EUR 631 million to 688 million) from the sale. Other Icelandic investors, who owned a stake in the company, booked a profit ISK 6 billion (USD 94 million, EUR 69 million), which, according to mbl.is, is the highest profit from a single investment in the history of Icelandic business.

Novator originally acquired a 65 percent stake in BTC when it was privatized in 2004 in cooperation with several investment companies, including Advent International, Straumur Burdarás and Iceland Telecom. In 2005 and 2006, Novator increased its stake to 85 percent. The dividends since 2004 paid out to the investors correspond to five times the amount of the original investment.

Björgólfsson told Morgunbladid he was very satisfied with the outcome. He had taken on a complicated task in modernizing a previously state-owned telecommunications company. Björgólfsson said Novator’s goals had been achieved after a short time and therefore it was time to sell BTC. “We have profited well and have a good reputation in Bulgaria and in the international market.”

AIG acquired a 90 percent stake in BTC and plans to acquire the remaining shares and de-list the company from the Stock Exchange in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital.

Source: Iceland Review (www.icelandreview.com).

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