Ivar Kreuger

Ivar Kreuger (March 2, 1880 – March 12, 1932) was a Swedish civil engineer, financier, entrepreneur and industrialist. In 1908 Kreuger 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 and Central and South American governments, and finally controlled between two thirds and three quarters of the worldwide match production, and became known as the "Match King". Kreuger's financial empire was described by one biographer as a Ponzi scheme, based on the supposedly fantastic profitability of Kreuger's match monopolies. But this is not quite correct since in a Ponzi Scheme early investors are paid dividends from their own money or that of subsequent investors. Although Ivar Kreuger did this to some extent, he also controlled many legitimate often very profitable businesses and also owned banks, real estate, a rich mine, 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. Another biographer called him a "genius and swindler", John Kenneth Galbraith wrote he was the "Leonardo of larcenists". His financial empire collapsed during the Great Depression, and in March 1932, he was found dead in the bedroom of his flat in Paris. The police concluded that he had committed suicide. Decades later his brother Torsten claimed that Ivar had been murdered which spawned some controversial literature on the subject (see below).