Ivar Kreuger, the .best-liked crook that ever lived,. was a Swede who operated on
Wall Street during the 1920s, and his apparent suicide in 1932 coincided with the
collapse of his businesses, bankrupting millions of investors. Partnoy, author and
academic, conducted extensive research on Kreuger, who was considered the greatest
business mind of his time. He cornered global markets in safety matches by raising
money in the U.S. and loaning it to European governments in return for monopoly
control of production and sales; he devised and sold complicated financial products
and with questionable accounting methods structured a long list of murky deals.
Partnoy explains that Kreuger, while a crook, was an attractive one who created
substantial wealth, revived much of post.World War I Europe, and generated real
profits for investors before his empire collapsed. With the current arrest of Wall
Street.s Bernard Madoff for stealing more than billion from investors, we are
reminded that history repeats itself. This is a timely and excellent book.

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