Larus Welding

For over 25 years, financier Larus Welding has dedicated his energies to leading and advising a wide range of public and private enterprises both in the UK and in his native country, Iceland.

Benefiting from his results-driven and relationship-orientated approach, demonstrating an absolute commitment to the companies, initiatives, owners and employees he works with, Larus is known as a highly committed professional.

Larus has an impressive track record of leading financing and M&A transactions to completion and has worked as an advisor to privately owned businesses and investment funds in the UK and in Iceland.  He has also served as a trusted board advisor in the UK and Iceland, where his expertise and experience in complex issue resolution has been utilised by a number of companies.  In April of 2023 Larus moved from a long standing board advisor role at Icelandic Investment company Stodir take up the postition of Chief Operating Officer at, working closely with CEO Jon Sigurdsson and dividing his time between London and Reykjavik.

In his relationship with the UK’s leading frozen food specialist supermarket, Iceland Foods, Larus serves as a director of the board of WD FF Ltd (the holding company for Iceland Foods). Larus was the lead banker to Iceland founder Malcolm Walker and his co-investors in their 2005 management buyout of Iceland Foods and continued to serve the company as an advisor from 2010.

From 2014-2016 he was Iceland’s Trading Finance Director, overseeing an annual turnover of £3bn and working closely with then CFO (now CEO) Tarsem Dhaliwal and Malcolm (now Sir Malcolm) Walker, Executive Chairman.

Prior to taking up his current advisory roles, Larus was CEO at Glitnir Bank from 2007 to 2008, then the third largest bank in Iceland, with Euros 20bn in assets. During this period as the chief executive officer, Larus led growth in corporate and investment banking internationally. During the global financial crisis, the board and management of Glitnir worked diligently to try to secure the bank's funding during this period of market turbulence – but developments caused by the financial crash resulted in the bank being taken over by the financial regulator towards the end of 2008.

Larus’ banking experience also includes four years from 2003 to 2007 as a General Manager at Landsbanki London (UK) where he enabled growth for the Landsbanki London branch allowing him to diversify the bank’s corporate banking loan book internationally. During this period, he set up a leverage finance team giving the bank expertise in the syndicated loan market. He also oversaw the growth of an asset backed lending team, Landsbanki Commercial Finance. By the time Larus left Landsbanki in April 2007 to move to Glitnir, he had also set up a branch for Landsbanki in Amsterdam and left the two branches with approximately £3bn in combined assets and over 150 employees.

Prior to his tenure at Landsbanki, Larus worked in Reykjavik for a local bank called Islandsbanki-FBA and briefly the Central Bank of Iceland.

In addition to his roles at Stodir and Iceland Foods Larus is a board observer and advisor to outdoor clothing brand 66North - Sjoklaedagerdin hf.  In Iceland Larus is also chair of the board of leading property developer Þingvangur ehf., a board member for  investment holding company S121 ehf., a board member at the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce and Chairman of the board at the Krysuvik rehabilitation center. . In the UK he holds investment manager and investment committee advisor roles for Renika Investments Ltd.,  BrealZeta CF I Ltd. and Bywater Properties Ltd..