Jóhannes Jónsson (31 August 1940 – 27 July 2013) was an

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

ic businessman and one of the founders of the investment company

Baugur Group Baugur Group (; Icelandic: ) was an Icelandic investment company. The group began as a supermarket and general retail company in Iceland, before diversifying to own a number of businesses at its peak, primarily in the United Kingdom. Baugur was ...

, which applied for

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

protection in February 2009. His warm public personality and co-founding of the supermarket chain

Bónus Bónus () is an Icelandic no-frills supermarket chain owned by Hagar. Bónus operates 31 stores in Iceland and seven in the Faroe Islands. It follows the no-frills format of limited hours, simple shelves and having a giant fridge instead of chi ...

led him to be known as Jói í Bónus.

Early life

Jóhannes's parents were Jón Elías Eyjólfsson, a store manager at the Sláturfélag Suðurlands in Reykjavík (1916-2001) and Kristín Fanney Jóhannesdóttir, a housewife and also an employee of the Sláturfélags Suðurlands (1918-2012). Jóhannes had a sister, Ester (1947-), who married Einar Vilhjálmsson (1947-). Jóhannes married Ása Karen Ásgeirsdóttir (1942-), who also worked at the Sláturfélag. They had two children: Kristín (1963-) and Jón Ásgeir (1968-). Subsequently he married Guðrún Þórsdóttir (1961-). Jóhannes began working at a young age for his father in the food section of the Sláturfélag Suðurlands, later becoming the shop manager there for two decades. He had studied printing, but never worked in this profession. He 'was not part of the Reykjavik elite, having no prime minister in his bloodline, no link to one of the well-cushioned Octopus families. He had trained in a slaughterhouse and was a grocer in a supermarket chain'.

Business empire

Made redundant in 1987, he founded the Bónus stores in Iceland in 1989 with his son and president of Baugur Group,

Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson (born 27 January 1968, in Reykjavík) is an Icelandic convicted criminal and former CEO of Baugur Group. Early career Jón Ásgeir's parents were Jóhannes Jónsson (1940-2013) and Ása Karen Ásgeirsdóttir (1942-), w ...

. In 2012, he opened an Iceland branch of the UK supermarket chain

in collaboration with the company's founder Malcolm Walker. He died of cancer on 27 July 2013.

References

1940 births 2013 deaths Johannes Jonsson People from Reykjavík 20th-century Icelandic businesspeople {{Iceland-bio-stub