A FINANCIER'S DEATH.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20495, 14 March 1932, Page 11

A FINANCIER'S DEATH.

MR IVAR KREUGER. SUICIDE DUE TO NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. (united PRESS ASSOCIATIOH—BT ELICTfIIO .TELEGRAPH—COPYRIGHT.) (Received March 13th, 11.30 p.m.) LONDON, March 12. Mr Ivar Kreuger, the Swedish "match king'' and financier, who had just returned from America, was found dead in his Paris flat with a revolver by his side. ' His suicide is attributed to a nervous breakdown. He lent money to the Swedish Government, for which he obtained match monopolies, which extended world-wide. The Stockholm Government will hurriedly convene Parliament to pass a moratorium Bill for private concerns, with special application to the Kreuger firm. |'Mr Ivar Kreuger, head of the world match trust, was born in March, 1880, at Kalmar, in Sweden. After attending the Stockholm Technical College he secured his diploma in engineering at the age of 19. After passing his examinations he went to the United States, where he was at first an estate agent and then engineer with a Chicago firm, for which ho superintended the building of a bridge at Vera Cruz. On his way back to Sweden he saved the life of a girl who had fallen overboard into the harbour at Havana. A specialist in steel frame construction, he built the Carlton Hotel at Johannesburg for the firm of Waring and Gillow. He then tried his fortune in South Africa as a contractor with little success. Returning to Sweden in 1907, he and Paul Toll found'ed the building firm of Kreuger and Toll, which later became the holding company of-his vast undertakings. The fortune of the "worlds most eligible bachelor" was estimated at £10,000,000. It was with the transformation of Kreuger and Toll into a holding company in 1911 and the abandonment of building that the financier s rise began in earnest. He worked steadily to secure a monopoly of the match industry in as many countries as possible. In 1917 he founded the Svenska Tandsticks A.8., and m 1919 the International Match Corporation m which Rockefeller has an interest. Kreuger's trust possesses some 150 factories in about 40 countries, employing over 60,000 workers. Ho devised a new method of ensuring a market for Ins output, making loans to States and m return securing monopolies or preferential treatment for his products. Up to the end of 1929 he had granted loans totalling over £37,000,000, of which France received £15,000,000, Jugoslavia £4,400,000, Hungary £6,200,000, Rumania £6,000,000, and Poland and Latvia £1,200,000 each. He controlled the manufacture of matches all over Northern Europe, in almost every part of Central Europe and in Greece, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, South America, India, China, and Japan. He was also associated with the British Match Company, which owns large factories m Great Britain and Canada. January, 1930, hi 3 offer of a loan of £30,000,000 to Germany in. return for the match monopoly was accepted—a deal which ended the imports of matches from Russia to the resentment of the Soviet.]

EFFECT ON WALL STREET. (Received March 13th, 6.55 p.m.) NEW YORK, March 12. The death has occurred of Mr Ivar Krouger, who exerted a great influence in the financial world here. He began his career in America as an obscure engineer and built the athletic stadium for the Syracuse University, which in 1930 gave him the honorary degree of Doctor of Business Administration. During a recent visit to America he had an interview with President Hoover and was engaged in consultation with New York stock market experts, as the result of which Kreuger-Toll certificates had been subjected to pressure, and rose from.4£ on January sth to 9 1-8 three weeks, later, and were well supported above 7 prior to the week just ended. Although the newß of his death was published after the close of the market to-day the selling of certificates began at the opening of the Stock Exchange and had all the indications of being of the "informed" type which usually precedes unfavourable news. Some 165,000 certificates were sold, a quarter of the volume on exchange, but were apparently well supported.