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HQ board quits as trading losses are declared

The board of embattled financial concern HQ Bank, including founder Mats Qviberg, have resigned a day after the bank announced the extent of the losses incurred by the closure of its trading portfolio.

Published: 30 June 2010 14:43 CEST

HQ board quits as trading losses are declared

The mass resignation comes a day after the organisation announced an accelerated closure settlement of its trading portfolio of 1.23 billion kronor ($158 million) in the second quarter, including the 297 million kronor loss announced earlier this month.

“The closure of the trading portfolio was very costly,” wrote HQ acting president and CEO Stephen Dahlbo. “It was, however, of the utmost importance to quickly be able to put the uncertainty and worries behind us.”

“Based on a stable financial position and a low level of risk we will now be able to place all resources on strengthening HQ’s value proposition and thereby creating added value for our clients, employees and shareholders,” he added.

HQ has received an advance of 235 million kronor from Öresund and several individual shareholders for a forthcoming new rights issue that is intended to be conducted in the autumn.

This advance was provided to HQ “to strengthen the capital base and capital adequacy until the planned new rights issue has been completed,” the company said.

In addition, Öresund has converted a fixed-term subordinated debenture to HQ of 150 million kronor into a perpetual subordinated debenture. It also received a perpetual subordinated debenture of 21 million from Mats and Eva Qviberg.

At the request of Öresund, an extraordinary general meeting will be held to elect HQ’s new board.

“All directors will in conjunction with the meeting vacate their positions,” HQ said in a statement.

HQ has hired a lawyer for a thorough review of its trading operations. This audit will be completed before the extraordinary general meeting.

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Rimini celebrates centenary of legendary Italian director Federico Fellini

A still from La Dolce Vita in the exhibition 'Fellini 100 : Immortal Genius'. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

Dozens of events are being held around the world and in Italy this year to remember Fellini, considered one of the most influential filmmakers of all time.

The winner of a record four best foreign language film Oscars, he is famed for films set in Rome such as 'La Dolce Vita' (1960), and most of his films were shot in Cinecitta's Studio 5 outside the capital.

But he set his 1973 masterpiece 'Amarcord', a semi-autobiographical comedy about an adolescent boy growing up in 1930s fascist Italy, in the Adriatic resort of Rimini, where he was born on January 20th 1920.

Weekend Wanderlust: Rimini off season, an uncrowded gem on the sea

The city is marking the centenary with a special exhibition and is due to open a museum dedicated to Fellini, who died in 1993, by the end of the year.

“Rimini is everywhere in Fellini's cinema, the countryside in his films is Rimini's countryside, the sea in all Fellini's films is Rimini's sea,” said Marco Leonetti of the Rimini Cinematheque which helped put on the exhibition.

The show includes some of the more spectacular costumes from his films, as well as frequently erotic extracts from the sketchbooks of his dreams he created for his psychotherapist over a 30-year period.

Costumes on display at the 'Fellini 100 : Immortal Genius' exhibition. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

'The maestro from Rimini'

Originally an artist and caricaturist, Fellini paid to watch films as a child at Rimini's Fulgor cinema by drawing caricatures, and his films remain caricatures of society.

“If you take Fellini's films, like 'Amarcord', 'La Dolce Vita', 'I Vitelloni', when you watch them all, it's as if you're flicking through a history book, you travel through the history of our country, the history of Italy, from the 1930s to the 1980s,” Leonetti told AFP.

READ ALSO: Fellini's La Strada: a vision of masculinity and femininity that still haunts us today

Fellini was initially appreciated more abroad than in Italy, where he frequently scandalised the conservative society of the 1950s.

His films embodied a sense of irony, the ability to invent, and a sense of beauty, said Leonetti. “These are the three qualities of his art, qualities which also created 'made in Italy', and that's why Fellini, besides having told the story of our country the best, is also the person who best represents it,” he said.

A photograph of Federico Fellini. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

Fellini has inspired generations of directors since, including Britain's Peter Greenaway and Spain's Pedro Almodovar. US director David Lynch, who shares the same birthday as Fellini, in 1997 declared his love for the “maestro from Rimini”.

“There's something about his films… They're so magical and lyrical and surprising and inventive. The guy was unique. If you took his films away, there would be a giant chunk of cinema missing,” Lynch told filmmaker Chris Rodley.

Fellini played “a shameless game of reflections and autobiographical projections” with his actors, the exhibition said.

The exhibition 'Fellini 100. Immortal genius' ends in March but will then travel to Rome and on to cities including Los Angeles, Moscow and Berlin.

By AFP's Charles Onians

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