Dawn after Iceland's darkest day
05 October 2012
Exton has weathered the largest banking crisis in history to remain Iceland's primary AV integrator and this year celebrates 20 years in business. Anna Mitchell talks to the company's Kristjan Magnusson about a market that matured quickly before feeling the brunt of the 2008 global financial crisis.
Between 2003 and 2007 Iceland’s economy shifted to one based on financial services and investment banking with staggeringly prosperous results. But when something seems to good to be true; it often is. As the global banking crisis started to bite Iceland was hugely exposed and vulnerable to the devastation coursing through the global financial markets.
The county’s banking industry, once studied for its impressively quick growth, became infamous for bringing the country to its knees. According to reports at the time, relative to the size of its economy, Iceland’s banking collapse was the largest suffered by any country in economic history. And what any study of this crisis should note is that this wasn’t a gradually worsening situation, this virtually happened overnight.
"Our turnover went down by 50% overnight," says Kristjan Magnusson, who handles installation sales for Icelandic AV integration and rental firm, Exton. "Out of our ten biggest clients, eight went bankrupt in one week. We had to scale down overnight to survive."
Read the article in InAVate’s Active Magazine to learn how the recession hit the country’s AV industry and what opportunities are present as it starts to emerge from the crisis.
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