Thor Bjorgolfsson — Founder of Novator Partners
Thor Bjorgolfsson, the founder of Novator Partners, is Iceland’s first and currently only billionaire. He is an important player in telecom, pharma, and banking.
Thor Bjorgolfsson Is the Founder of Novator Partners and Became Iceland’s First Billionaire
Thor Bjorgolfsson is an investor and innovator who is famed for being Iceland’s first and only billionaire. He is the founder of alternative investment firm Novator Partners and plays an important role in the telecom industry, pharmaceutical, and banking industries.
About Thor Bjorgolfsson
Early Life
Born in 1967, Thor likely inherited his business acumen from his grandfather, Thor Jensen, who was one of Iceland’s first successful entrepreneurs. Thor himself was bitten by the bug of entrepreneurialism at the early age of ten when he made a deal on a pack of Marvel comics and eventually compiled a valuable comic collection. At the age of 11, he used his bicycle to run errands for a university physics lab in the summer and for Iceland’s biggest newspaper the next year. Thor went to college in the United States, receiving a B.S. from New York University.
Brief History
Thor achieved initial success shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. He believed that the change taking place in Russia could form the basis of an opportunity to supply an underserved market. He co-founded the Bravo Brewery, producing beer and spirits that ultimately made the company a leader in the Russian beverage industry. In 2002, Thor sold Bravo to Heineken for USD 100 million and used the revenue to make other investments in the telecom, pharma, and bank industries. Within a few years, he transformed his net worth into over USD 2.1 billion and was featured on the cover of Forbes Magazine in 2007.
Although he faced bankruptcy as part of the financial crisis that overtook Iceland later that year, Thor succeeded in paying off all of the personal guarantees for which he was responsible. He managed to find a way to make new investments once again and clawed his way back to Forbes’s list of billionaires a second time. In 2014, he recounted the saga in his book Billions to Bust and Back: How I Made, Lost and Rebuilt a Fortune, And What I Learned on the Way.
Geographically
Thor lives primarily in London with his wife and three children, though he is an Icelandic citizen and speaks several languages. Thor invests in emerging markets and industries, taking risks in places where others tend to be quite averse to doing so. He has made numerous investments throughout Central and Eastern Europe as well as in Latin America.
Read more about the global reach of Novator Partners and Thor Bjorgolfsson
Significant Investments
Thor’s company, Novator Partners, has consistently played a major role in the telecommunications industry. Thor is a stakeholder WOM, a Chilean telecom company, as well as in Play, a Polish telecom company that went public in 2017. He has also made investments in Zwift, BeamUp, Deliveroo, MMOG, CCP Games, and various cryptocurrencies.
Read more about Thor in his website: www.Thorbjorgolfsson.com