Over £30m of Oxford University cash is frozen in Icelandic bank accounts, the university has admitted.
The money represents 5% of the university’s cash deposits, out of a total of £600 million. Oxford University endowment wealth totals £3.4billion.
Iceland has been forced to nationalise its three major banks in the past week, leaving the country with a debt twelve times the size of its GDP.
In Britain, at least twelve universities, along with various charities, councils and hospitals, have found their deposits frozen.
A spokesperson for Oxford University said, “operations are unaffected – students should be assured that this is not going to affect them or colleges and University operations.”
She added, “the University is however working hard to recover the money, as you’d expect.”
“Millions… but not hundreds of millions” of pounds of investments are now at risk across British universities, according to the British Universities Finance Directors Group.
A spokesman for the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFC) confirmed that “considerably less than £100 million” of universities’ investments were in Iceland.
Cambridge University has disclosed it had £11m in Icelandic bank subsidiaries, but said that the funds represented just three per cent of its total bank deposits.
The Open University has confirmed that it had £6.5 million in the Icelandic bank subsidaries.
There is as yet no deal to guarantee the billions of pounds of investments made in the country’s collapsed banks.
Last week Gordon Brown called Iceland’s refusal to guarantee British savings “totally unacceptable and illegal” and threatened to seize the assets of Icelandic companies if British deposits are not reimbursed.
Officials from the Treasury, Bank of England and FSA spoke on Sunday of “significant progress” in their discussions aimed at securing a rapid repayment package for British savers who had deposits in Icesave, the UK operation of one of the collapsed banks.
Over the next two months HEFC will attempt to establish the effect of the financial crisis on university finances. Its focus will be particularly on the health of the large investment funds controlled by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
