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The Match King
Book

The Match King

Ivar Kreuger, the Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals

Frank Partnoy
Public Affairs, 2009

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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Eye Opening
  • Engaging

Recommendation

Readers who love fascinating stories with unforgettable characters will thank professor and market expert Frank Partnoy for his book on 1920s business icon Ivar Kreuger. This remarkable figure was a global financier, Greta Garbo’s close companion, and an adviser to prime ministers, kings and a U.S. president. Though he was one of the world’s greatest con men, he has somehow slipped, all but forgotten, from popular history. Partnoy resurrects Kreuger in all his tragic glory: a successful, well-known entrepreneur whose abrupt fall from grace and apparent suicide – by a bullet through the heart – coincided with the Great Depression. Kreuger’s financial chicanery led to comprehensive U.S. securities reform in the early 1930s. getAbstract considers this business biography a rollicking good tale. It holds particular lessons for those looking to make sense of recent financial history: how a brilliant businessman made some innovative – and eerily familiar – promises to greedy, willfully ignorant investors.

Take-Aways

  • In the 1920s, business genius Ivar Kreuger, “the Match King,” controlled a financial empire, including the largest safety match manufacturer in the world.
  • One of Europe’s richest men, he could quickly win the trust of anyone he met.
  • He also was a consummate con man, organizing elaborate Ponzi schemes to secure new capital to pay earlier investors.

About the Author

Frank Partnoy, former investment banker and corporate lawyer, wrote F.I.A.S.C.O.: Blood in the Water on Wall Street. He is a professor at the University of San Diego.

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