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Ivar Kreuger was a Swedish financier, known as “the match king,” who attempted to gain a worldwide monopoly over the production of matches.
After practicing as a civil engineer in the U.S. and in South Africa, Kreuger returned to Sweden in 1907 and founded a match company. During World War I the entire Swedish match industry was concentrated under Kreuger’s initiative into a single firm, Svenska Tändsticks AB (the Swedish Match Company), with Kreuger as managing director. After the war, backed largely by U.S. capital, Kreuger launched a series of highly speculative financial operations, the aim of which was to secure a monopoly of the production and marketing of matches outside Sweden. The majority of Kreuger’s transactions after 1925 took the form of long-term dollar loans to countries short of foreign currency in return for agreements granting him monopoly rights. By 1928 Kreuger’s concern probably controlled more than half the match production of the world. But as the world depression developed, his position became increasingly strained. In 1932 Kreuger shot himself; it was discovered afterward that the assets and profits recorded for the business were largely fictitious. The concern disintegrated and many of its component companies went bankrupt.
