The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, the Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals

By: Frank Partnoy

Published April 1st 2009 by PublicAffairs (first published February 19th 2009)

Category: Business

Pages: 272 pages

ISBN: 9781586487430

Description:
At the height of the roaring Õ20s, Swedish ŽmigrŽ 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 KreugerÕs 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 productsÑ many of them precursors to instruments wreaking havoc in todayÕs 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 CBSÕs Ò60 Minutes,Ó 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.