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 Ivar Kreuger (1880-1932) was born in Kalmar and was the son of a match manufacturer. In 1917, he became the head of the newly formed Svenska Tändsticks AB Group, which developed into the world?s biggest match group. Kreuger bought up small match industries, wound them up, and built modern factories able to deal with the stiff competitive climate instead. He granted loans to 17 countries, and was simultaneously granted monopolies on match manufacturing. The profits on these monopolies enabled the loan costs to be paid.
When the Kreuger empire was at its peak, it controlled almost 70% of the global production of matches. The shots in Paris on 12th March 1932, which took Kreuger?s life, triggered the Kreuger crash, and the resulting bankruptcy involved SEK 3.7 billion - an astronomical sum at that time.
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