Straumur's exposure to Lehman Brothers

Subsequent to the Chapter 11 filing of Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc,
Straumur-Burdaras Investment Bank hf. ("Straumur") wishes to provide
the following information to clarify its exposure to Lehman Brothers.

Straumur has no direct exposure to Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc,
whether in the form of investments in equity, senior or subordinated
debt, loans, issued letters of credit or otherwise.

However, Straumur has exposure to the UK based Lehman Brothers
International (Europe) ("LBIE"), mainly on account of LBIE acting as
one of Straumur's prime brokers and its principal counterparty to a
number of derivatives transactions.

As of 15 September 2008 Straumur had, in relation to the brokering
service provided by LBIE, posted collateral with LBIE totalling
€48.2m in cash and €16.8 in equities. This now represents a claim by
Straumur. In addition, the net marked to market gain on the
derivatives portfolio owed to Straumur is €6.0m. The brokering
service and the associated portfolio have now been wound up at
insignificant cost to Straumur.

Secondly, Straumur had sold, partially as a hedge for a
customer-generated transaction, credit protection referencing Lehman
Brothers Holding, Inc with a notional value of €29m.

Given the current uncertainty of the actions and timetable of the
appointed administrators with regards to the exact legal treatment of
the various claims of repayment, Straumur is not in a position at
this time to provide an estimate of the possible loss on this
exposure, if any.

Any loss arising from this exposure would have no significant impact
on Straumur's liquidity position and given the bank's strong
CAD-ratio it would have a very limited effect on capital adequacy.

William Fall, CEO of Straumur:"Over the course of the past two years or so we have successfully
de-risked Straumur's balance sheet by greatly reducing the bank's
equity exposure, and we have introduced a rigorous risk management
regime. While we have thus sought to minimise market risk and the
risk of trading losses, we can obviously not prevent a counterparty
failure. With regulatory capital of 1.1 billion euros at the end of
the second quarter and an exceptionally high capital adequacy ratio
(CAD) of 25.4% against the required minimum of 8%, which translates
into excess regulatory capital of 766 million euros, Straumur is very
well equipped to manage any loss that might result from this
unfortunate event. It is important to note, however, that given the
many uncertaincies, for example regarding the potential sale of the
particular Lehman-business Straumur had dealings with, speculation as
to the extent of such a loss is clearly premature at this stage."

For further information contact:
Ólafur Teitur Gudnason
Vice President, Media Relations
Corporate Communciations
Tel: +354 858 6778
e-mail: olafur.gudnason@straumur.net

About Straumur

Straumur (STRB) is a Northern and Central European investment bank
offering a complete range of integrated financial services focusing
on small and medium sized companies, institutional investors and
individuals.  The services provided include capital markets,
corporate finance, debt finance, and asset management.

Headquartered in Reykjavík, Straumur is Iceland's largest pure-play
investment bank. The Bank has total assets of €6,201m as at the end
of Q2 2008 and a long-term investment rating of BBB- from Fitch.
Through organic growth and strategic acquisitions, the Bank has
established operations in ten countries including the UK, Denmark,
Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic and now employs a team of 520
people. Straumur is rapidly delivering against its objectives to
become the leading investment bank in Northern and Central Europe.
www.straumur.com