Hopes for recovery of the cash put in Icelandic bank
Council bosses have announced they are still hoping to recover some of the investments made in a failed Icelandic bank.
South Ribble Borough Council invested £2m in the Heritable bank which was caught in the country’s economic collapse in October 2008.
It has since received more than 40% of the £2m it deposited and council bosses claim they have been told the majority of the cash could eventually be recovered.
Coun Stephen Robinson, cabinet member with responsibility for finance and resources, said: “We have worked very hard to pursue the return of our frozen Icelandic deposits since the country’s economic collapse two years ago and I am very pleased with the progress we have made.
“The administrators have said that in time, we could get back most of the money which was deposited with Heritable.
“There can be no guarantees of course but we are very optimistic.
“It is all a far cry from the doom and gloom of 2008 and early 2009 when some so-called experts suggested that all the money we had invested in Iceland was lost forever.”
The latest installment of £126,000 was received in July.
Last week the leader of Lancashire County Council, Geoff Driver, admitted there was much uncertainty over whether the authority would receive any of the £10 million that it lost in October 2008.
The county was affected by the collapse of Landsbanki.
He told the Lancashire Evening Post: “If we don’t get it back then it will be on top of everything else we have got to find..”
LCC has already unveiled plans to hack a potential £113 million off its budget in the next four years.
The councils were one of 123 local authorities in the UK affected by the meltdown of Iceland’s economy brought about by the failure of all three of its major banks in October 2008.
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