Word: kreuger
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...suicide is the most elusive question of all. Money problems? Poverty as such does not drive people to suicide; it is the wealthy whose fortunes collapse, like Swedish Match King Ivar Kreuger, rather than those with nothing to lose, who are more inclined to it. Poor health? Physical suffering rarely triggers self-destruction; the incidence among cancer patients is remarkably low. Love? Few really kill themselves for unrequited passion...
...merchant banker's prime asset is his experience in sizing up situations, measuring men and calculating risks down to one sixty-fourth of 1 %. But very often, as Wechsberg notes, he relies on instinct. One day in 1932, Swedish Match King Ivar Kreuger tried to interest the Lehman Brothers in a complicated financial deal. Kreuger talked and talked about his grandiose schemes, while Philip Lehman made a few notes. Then Lehman turned him down: "I have a rule, Mr. Kreuger. If I cannot understand something by reading my notes on the subject...
...Higginson overextended itself. Between 1928 and 1932, it underwrote many millions of dollars worth of Swedish Swindler Ivar Kreuger's efforts to corner the international matchmaking market. After Kreuger's depredations were disclosed, Lee Higginson, among others, was stuck with...
...firm never really recovered. While some of the old partners spent 20 years or more honorably paying off their debts from the Kreuger fiasco, the reorganized firm could never rustle up enough cash for the computers and research staffs to compete with such giants as Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith-or, on a somewhat smaller scale, Hayden, Stone. Says Hayden, Stone Chairman Alfred J. Coyle, they "couldn't make the costly effort we make in research-the only way a firm can supply the services customers want...
Compared with that, Charles Ponzi, Lowell Birrell, Eddie Gilbert and Billie Sol Estes were pikers. Only Ivar Kreuger, the Swedish match king who in the 1920s defrauded investors of $500 million, ever topped Tino. More than that, De Angelis presents the classic example of how a man can exploit a complicated situation and use the credulity of high financiers for tremendous gain...