With a series of high-profile acquisitions over the past two years, Jon Asgeir Johannesson has become the best-known Icelander in Britain after singer Björk. Through privately held retail and real estate company Baugur, Johannesson, 37, has snapped up the famous London toy store Hamleys, fashion chains including Karen Millen and Oasis, jeweler Goldsmiths and, last year, the Big Food Group (which owns a supermarket chain called, handily, Iceland). But now, just as he's on the verge of his biggest deal to date, a $1.7 billion takeover of Somerfield, Britain's fifth largest supermarket group, a chill...
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