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Key company to the entirgroup was the original engineering and real estate firm of Kreuger & Toll, controlled by Class A voting shares capitalized at $50,000, the majority of which Ivar Kreuger held himself. This small amount of stock carried control of properties capitalized at over a billion dollars.
Kreuger & Toll has many activities in addition to control of the match companies. It handles much of the financing the monopolies make necessary. It has a 20% interest in the Grangesberg Co. of Sweden, biggest iron producer in Europe, and an 80% interest in the Boliden gold mine in northern Sweden, thought to be the richest in the world. It owns Swedish Pulp Co. with 4,900,000 acres of fine forest, valuable power properties and rights. It controls financial institutions throughout Europe, including commercial and mortgage banks. A typical deal was its purchase of Sweden's $29,000,000 share in the Young Plan Loan in 1930. It has real estate companies with properties throughout Europe, including 87 buildings in Stockholm. By selling control of L. M. Ericsson Telephone Co. (acquired in 1930) to International Telephone & Telegraph for 400,000 shares of I. T. & T. stock, Ivar Kreuger connected his empire with the worldwide communications skein of the Behn Brothers.
There was a central thought in the great conglomeration of Kreuger companies, although the very size of the enterprise made some conservative bankers keep away from it even before Depression. Making his fortune in matches, Ivar Kreuger decided to concentrate on basic industries with large, scattered consumption. His company had great cash resources and these had to be invested, kept fruitful. For this reason he bought control or made close affiliations with banks throughout the world, feeling that banks were in position to judge their countries' investment opportunities better than a foreign delegation of statisticians. They also could handle his transactions with complete privacy. Another rule he stuck to was to buy only into institutions with long and successful careers, ones in which problems of management and operation would not arise.
While Matchman Kreuger made no matches in the U. S., he raised much cash there. Through his U. S. bankers, Lee, Higginson & Co., the Kreuger companies floated about $200,000,000 worth of securities in the past few years. These issues include an issue of participating Kreuger & Toll debentures which are listed on the New York Stock Exchange. For some months the Kreuger securities have been weak and on his last visit Ivar Kreuger spent much time consulting with market manipulators. Last week the Kreuger & Toll shares were especially weak, dropping from $7⅜ to $5 on tremendous volume. On the day preceding his suicide it was the most active stock on the New York Stock Exchange. This was also true on Saturday when it accounted for 25% of trading although no word of Ivar Kreuger's death had leaked out.