Ivar Kreuger

"Match King" redirects here. For the 1932 film about Kreuger, see The Match King.
Ivar Kreuger
Kreuger c. 1920
Born(1880-03-02)2 March 1880
Kalmar, Sweden
Died12 March 1932(1932-03-12) (aged 52)
Paris, France
Resting placeNorra begravningsplatsen
EducationRoyal Institute of Technology
Occupation(s)Businessman
Industrialist
RelativesTorsten Kreuger (brother)
Signature

Ivar Kreuger (Swedish: [ˈǐːvar ˈkry̌ːɡɛr]; 2 March 1880 – 12 March 1932)[1] was a Swedish civil engineer, financier, entrepreneur and industrialist. In 1908, he co-founded the construction company Kreuger & Toll Byggnads AB, which specialized in new building techniques. By aggressive investments and innovative financial instruments, he built a global match and financial empire. Between the two world wars, he negotiated match monopolies with European, Central American and South American governments, and finally controlled between two thirds and three quarters of worldwide match production, becoming known as the "Match King".[2][3]

Kreuger's financial empire has been described by one biographer as a Ponzi scheme, based on the supposedly fantastic profitability of his match monopolies.[4] However, in a Ponzi scheme early investors are paid dividends from their own money or that of subsequent investors. Although Kreuger did this to some extent, he also controlled many legitimate and often very profitable businesses, and owned banks, real estate, a gold mine, and pulp and industrial companies, besides his many match companies. Many of them have survived to this day. Kreuger & Toll, for example, was composed of bona fide businesses, and there were others like it.[5] Another biographer called Kreuger a "genius and swindler",[6] and John Kenneth Galbraith wrote that he was the "Leonardo of larcenists".[7] Kreuger's financial empire collapsed during the Great Depression. The Price Waterhouse autopsy of his financial empire stated: "The manipulations were so childish that anyone with but a rudimentary knowledge of bookkeeping could see the books were falsified."[8] In March 1932, he was found dead in the bedroom of his flat in Paris. The police concluded that he had committed suicide, but decades later, his brother Torsten claimed that he had been murdered, which spawned some controversial literature on the subject.

  1. ^ "A 3-part series on the life and death of Ivar Kreuger". Fortune. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  2. ^ "Poor Kruger". Time. 21 March 1932. Archived from the original on 15 December 2008. Retrieved 16 April 2008.
  3. ^ Kreuger Genius And Swindler by Robert Shaplen (Alfred A. Knopf Inc. New York; 1960, p.9)
  4. ^ see in: The Incredible Ivar Kreuger by Allen Churchill (Weidenfeld, London; Rinehart & Co., New York; 1957)
  5. ^ The Match King by Frank Partnoy c. 2009 Frank Partnoy(Public Affairs, New York; 2009) pp.13;51
  6. ^ Kreuger Genius And Swindler by Robert Shaplen (Alfred A. Knopf Inc. New York; 1960)
  7. ^ Introduction toKreuger Genius And Swindler by John Kenneth Galbraith, p.x (Alfred A. Knopf Inc. New York; 1960)
  8. ^ Charles R. Morris, A Rabble of Dead Money: The Great Crash and the Global Depression: 1929-1939 (2017), p 167.