The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, The Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals

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 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.

Author: Frank Partnoy
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 03/09/2010
Pages: 288
Weight: 0.6lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.50w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9781586488123


Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 03/28/2010 pg. 22

About the Author
Frank Partnoy is the author of F.I.A.S.C.O., Infectious Greed, and The Match King. Formerly an investment banker at Morgan Stanley and a practicing corporate lawyer, he is one of the world's leading experts on market regulation and is a frequent commentator for the Financial Times, the New York Times, NPR, and CBS's 60 Minutes. Partnoy is a graduate of Yale Law School and is the George E. Barrett Professor of Law and Finance and the founding director of the Center for Corporate and Securities Law at the University of San Diego.