The Match King
Books | Biography & Autobiography / Business
3.7
Frank Partnoy
At the height of the roaring '20s, Swedish 'migr' Ivar Kreuger made a fortune raising money in America and loaning it to Europe in exchange for matchstick monopolies. His enterprise was a rare success story throughout the Great Depression. Yet after Kreuger's suicide in 1932, the true nature of his empire emerged. Driven by success to adopt ever-more perilous practices, Kreuger had turned to shell companies in tax havens, fudged accounting figures, off-balance-sheet accounting, even forgery. He created a raft of innovative financial products -- many of them precursors to instruments wreaking havoc in today's markets. When his Wall Street empire collapsed, millions went bankrupt. Frank Partnoy, a frequent commentator on financial disaster for the Financial Times, New York Times, NPR, and CBS's "60 Minutes," recasts the life story of a remarkable yet forgotten genius in ways that force us to re-think our ideas about the wisdom of crowds, the invisible hand, and the free and unfettered market.
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Author
Frank Partnoy
Pages
288
Publisher
PublicAffairs
Published Date
2010-03-09
ISBN
0786741546 9780786741540
Community ReviewsSee all
"So fascinating"
Steven Weber
"Full review and highlights at <a href="https://books.max-nova.com/match-king">https://books.max-nova.com/match-king</a><br/><br/>"The Match King" was a perfect fit for my year of "Crime and Punishment" because it combined corruption and murder with two of my favorite topics: entrepreneurship and Sweden! Although we don't hear much about him now, Ivar Kreuger rivaled Jack Morgan in the 1920's as one of the captains of international finance. But unlike Morgan, Kreuger turned out to be running quite a scam on top of all of his legitimate business - sort of a 1920's Bernie Madoff. Yale Law grad Frank Partnoy helps us untangle Kreuger's intricate international web of hidden bank accounts, secret deals, bond issues, and government monopolies to understand how Kreuger pulled off one of the greatest swindles in history. Partnoy paints his cast of characters with vibrant detail and shows us how Kreuger expertly controlled his public image (and his auditors!) to dupe America's financial class. This was a guy who was a trusted advisor to President Hoover, a trans-Atlantic cultural icon, and owner of a brain that always seemed two steps ahead. I was almost surprised that he wasn't involved in the Teapot Dome scandal that occurred at about the same time! And to top it all off, his mysterious death in 1932 still has investigators scratching their heads.<br/><br/>Yet Partnoy shows us that Kreuger's legacy is not quite so black and white. He left an enormous physical and cultural imprint on Sweden: constructing the stadium for the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, founding Svenska Filmindustri, promoting (and dating) a young Greta Garbo, and building Stockholm City Hall (where the Nobel Prize is awarded). Although notorious for his innovations like off-balance-sheet financing, Kreuger did create legitimate financial mechanisms (like B shares) that are still in use today. And as Partnoy explains, Kreuger's fraud was the major impetus behind the Securities Act of 1933 which GAAP and other modern financial rules. And to be fair, Swedish Match actually still exists and employs over 12,000 people!<br/><br/>Ivar Kreuger's story has been overshadowed by the two World Wars that bookend it, but his fascinating life set the stage for much of 20th century financial history. Partnoy's retelling is well worth a read."
Max Nova