The story opens with the purchase of a 9mm Browning at a small Paris gun shop by a man named Ivar Kreuger. The next morning, the world's leading bankers nervously waited to ask Ivar about some forged Italian bonds. Hours later, his dead body was discovered and the largest financial empire of the era collapsed.
This book traces Ivar's meteoric rise from the obscurity of provincial Sweden, to become a construction mogul and then a global business oligarch. Ivar acquired match monopolies throughout the world and usurped J. P. Morgan to become the leading lender to foreign governments. His financial innovations resonate today. A self made media figure, he discovered and promoted Greta Garbo but also advised politicians, including President Hoover.
Was he a financial genius or merely a schemer? Did he really stage his own suicide? This book brings back to life one of the greatest swindlers of all times.
An interesting biography of one of the forgotten financial wizard's of the the nineteenth century. A Swedish financier who single-handed created a monopoly of the stick match industry, who would have thought to corner the match stick market in the nineteenth century. it is just so interesting to read how they did it then and how it is done now, not much difference from today's TBTF. Who would believe this story? Just goes to show truth is something beyond any fiction you could read.
I am amazed by these early financiers, these self made men who never blinked an eye at how they amassed these great fortunes. Most of them seem to be cheats and scallywags who are no different that that existing oligarchy.
