The Match King Ivar Kreuger, the Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals |
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Author:
| Partnoy, Frank |
ISBN: | 978-1-282-46015-7 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2010 |
Publisher: | PublicAffairs
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Book Format: | Ebook |
List Price: | USD $15.95 |
Book Description:
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At the height of the roaring 20s, Swedish emigre 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 his suicide in 1932, it became clear that Kreuger was not all he seemed: evidence surfaced of fudged accounting figures, off-balance-sheet accounting, even forgery. He created a raft of innovative financial products many of them precursors...
More DescriptionAt the height of the roaring 20s, Swedish emigre 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 his suicide in 1932, it became clear that Kreuger was not all he seemed: evidence surfaced of fudged accounting figures, off-balance-sheet accounting, even forgery. He created a raft of innovative financial products many of them precursors to instruments wreaking havoc in today s markets. In this gripping financial biography, Frank Partnoy 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."