pylsukonungurinn?

Drivers passing along Route 1 in the south of Iceland will notice large white warehouse-shaped buildings in several small towns. These are the business end of the Icelandic Meat Empire, Sláturfélag Suðurlands, or the Slaughtering Association of the Southlands. SS is famous for its odd acronym, its imaginative slogan ("Íslendingar borða SS pylsur": "Icelanders eat SS hot dogs"), and its mascots, the pylsufólk. Long-time readers may remember the cartoon hot dog people from an earlier post, where my brother remarked that "They're eating their own kind!" It's true; the sausage-shaped pylsufólk have a habit of appearing hot-dog-in-hand. It turns out that they also have their own disturbing Hot Dog Fairy Tale World for kids of all ages.

So given all this background, suffice it to say I've become mildly obsessed with Sláturfélag Suðurlands. In an economy full of high-flying and overhyped banks, the business of SS seems cozily low-tech. When I found out that SS was actually publicly traded on the Iceland Stock Exchange, my enthusiasm doubled. It turns out that a few years back they were taken public by our very own KB Banki. Maybe I could own a piece of the Meat Empire. Excellent.

When I checked our market information system for a price quote, however, it came back with 0. It appears that SS is so thinly traded that there is no price reference data in recent months. Absolutely zero movement on the market. This stock is day-od, in the words of Al Pacino.

Apparently the boys at SS realized that their stock being not traded at all was less than desirable. Turns out the boys at SS have a side business in bra and panty importation. So one day, Icelandic asset managers came in to desks covered with boxes of bras and panties, in the hopes that these freebies would entice them to buy high-flying SS shares. I'm not sure it worked. Now the asset managers are trying to sell them all in the middle pages of Fréttablaðið.

With this new bra-and-panty angle, for me SS goes from "accumulate" to "buy buy buy". I'd like to amass as many shares as I can. It shouldn't be so hard. Maybe I will start the buying today. Then in time I could take over the meat-processing operations of this Icelandic hot dog giant, and be crowned Pylsukonungurinn, the Hot Dog King of Iceland.